Military training typically indoctrinates soldiers into dehumanizing the “enemy.” Yet, even if that could be justified (which a Christian conscience forbids), what is happening now in Gaza is not a military conflict.
The target is an unarmed young man posing no threat whatsoever to the soldiers. He carries no weapon, not even a raised fist. This is not a battle; it is an execution.
The victim’s only crime was being Palestinian. For that infraction, he had been tried, convicted and sentenced long ago.
His only provocation was objecting to an insufferable occupation that has denied him of every human right. Yet, his presence at the Gazan protests demonstrates that he had not surrendered himself to Israel’s dehumanizing demands.
So Israel terminated him for insubordination. Holding one’s head up is an act of terrorism in Israel, if you are a Palestinian.
Israel’s Zionist policies had worked at dehumanizing this young man all of his life. He was defined as Israel’s enemy the day he was born, not by his parents, mind you, but by Israel itself.
The sniper’s outburst of joy and laughter demonstrates who has truly been dehumanized by a lifetime of Zionist indoctrination.
What further proof is necessary to show that the American, evangelical love affair with modern Israel is a twisted relationship that must end? If pious Bible-believers do not see this execution and recoil with shame, then how hard have out hearts become?
Persistently saying, No, to the Holy Spirit leads us into an ever-darker place where conscience eventually dies, “as if it were seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2).
Thomas Friedman, among others, once suggested that the long-awaited solution to Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian people could be found in a Gandhi-esque mass movement of Palestinian non-violent resistance.
In a 2002 New York Times editorial entitled “Waiting for Gandhi on the West Bank,” penned during the First Intifada, Friedman opined:
“…the Palestinians have long had a tactical alternative to suicide: non-violent resistance à la Gandhi. A non-violent Palestinian movement appealing to the conscience of the Israeli silent majority would have delivered a Palestinian state 30 years ago”
In July 2010, the New York Times editorialist Nicholas Kristof offered similar advice:
“…imagine if Palestinians stopped the rock-throwing and put female pacifists in the lead. What if 1,000 women sat down peacefully on a road to block access to an illegal Jewish settlement built on Palestinian farmland? What if the women allowed themselves to be tear-gassed, beaten and arrested without a single rock being thrown? Those images would be on televisions around the world – particularly if hundreds more women marched in to replace those hauled away.”
I can’t help but notice how easy it is for Kristof to volunteer someone else’s grandmother – in the case of Palestine, thousands of mothers and grandmothers – for a good gassing, beating, arrest and sentencing to a brutal, Israeli military prison.
I find it especially curious that, since both Friedman and Kristof clearly imply that the Palestinians deserve a peaceable resolution to The Occupation, neither of them has the guts to criticize (much less condemn) Israel’s draconian policies towards Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
A Palestinian stands on his property overlooking the Israeli settlement Har Homa, West Bank, February 18, 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…in an attempt to prevent the upcoming vote on an United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements. UPI/Debbie Hill
Kristof even acknowledges, whether accidentally or not, that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Yet, he does not propose the obvious solution of dismantling these illegal settlements which steal Palestinian resources on a daily basis.
Mr. Kristof thinks it better to imagine thousands of pacifist, Palestinian grandmothers battered by tear-gas canisters and hauled off to a military prison. My apologies, I cannot help but wonder if Mr. Kristof’s Freudian slip is showing? Was he secretly grinning when he wrote that sentence?
Furthermore, both writers seem to agree that continued rock-throwing – yes, that most horrid of all destructive terrorist tactics, rock-throwing…by women and children, no less! – poses an insuperable obstacle to Israel’s acceptance of Palestinian demands for peace in their own territory.
Imagine what peace might be had in the Promised Land already if only those Palestinian protesters had shown the bravery needed to surrender their rocks! One can only wonder.
However, if the current blood-letting in Gaza teaches us anything, it is that the majority of Israeli citizens today have no conscience. At least, not when it concerns the Palestinians. There is no moral “silent majority” waiting to “deliver a Palestinian state” if only rabid Palestinian miscreants would get their non-violent house in order.
As the journalist Gideon Levy writes in today’s edition of Haaretz (4/5/18):
“In Gaza, Israeli army snipers shot unarmed demonstrators as if they were on a shooting range, to a chorus of rejoicing by the media and the masses…This is what the nation wants and this is what it will get. Even if soldiers kill hundreds of demonstrators in Gaza, Israel will not bat an eyelid. The reason: evil and hatred of Arabs. Gaza is never perceived as it really is, a place inhabited by people, an enormous and terrible prison, a huge site of human experimentation. Most Israelis, who — just like their prime minister — have never spoken to a single Gazan, only know that the Gaza Strip is a nest of terrorists. That’s why it’s OK to shoot them. Shocking? Yes, but true.”
Will the likes of Friedman and Kristof now recant?
Will they and their pro-Zionist brethren finally admit that, as long as Israel retains the unquestioning support of the world’s only super-power, no Palestinian strategy for gaining their human rights, liberty and civic freedoms will every prove effective? No sort of resistance will ever be tolerated?
Will they recognize that political Zionism finally has drowned the last vestiges of Israeli conscience and humanitarian spirit in the brackish waters of Jewish nationalism, synonymous with systematic, unapologetic racism?
The entire world is now witnessing what happens when massive, non-violent protests confront the military force of an ethnocracy, rooted in a commitment to purity-of-blood, defending its founding ideology of racial privilege.
Historical discussions on the effectiveness of non-violent movements, of course, usually focus on Gandhi’s confrontation of British rule in India. Gandhi has become the icon of pacifistic civil disobedience, especially as he led the people’s Salt March in 1930.
Cynics, however, have typically responded to pro-Gandhi idealists by pointing out the humanitarian bent of the British Empire (grossly exaggerated, by the way). They then pose an alternative scenario:
What if Gandhi and his followers had confronted Nazi Germany rather than Great Britain? How effective would Gandhi’s mass-pacifism have been once the Indian people were staring down the barrels of German machine guns enforcing Nazi racial doctrine?
Well, the world no longer needs to wonder about history’s answer to that cynical, hypothetical question. The answer is no longer hypothetical. The answer is real and obvious for all to see in the blood-stained no-man’s land surrounding a place called Gaza.
Israeli soldiers are shooting down innocent, unarmed, non-violent – oh yes, I forgot, a very, very few do threaten Israeli peace of mind with their occasional stone-throwing – men and women for no other reason than that they are Palestinians marching for their freedom.
Have you yet seen the video footage of the elderly Palestinian grandmother who decides to enact Kristof’s dream scenario?
Holding a Palestinian flag in her wrinkled hand, she ambles slowly toward the separation fence. Israeli soldiers, undoubtedly terrorized by this slow-motion charge of an elderly woman, seemingly intent on climbing over the 10-foot fence and beating them to death with her small flag stick, shot her dead while she was still dozens of yards away.
Under Israel’s vigilant gaze, every Palestinian commits an unforgivable sin when she will not lay down and play dead. If you don’t play dead, an Israeli soldier will make you dead.
Palestinians with enough hubris to stand up and insist that they, too, are human beings will quickly be cut down to size. Including the old women.
The world is now witnessing a demonstration of how those who have been abused assimilate themselves to their abuser. The victims of the Holocaust have perfected their own brand of genocide rooted in their own doctrine of racial superiority.
My friend, Munther Amira, is sitting in an Israeli prison cell. His only crime: protesting to defend the rights of Palestinian children held in Israel’s military prisons.
Military courts, judges and prisons are the only options available to Palestinians in the West Bank because they live under military law and have no civil rights.
Modern Israel is a racist state, imposing a form of apartheid over the Palestinian people. The vast majority of Israelis do not care about the Palestinian children who are ripped from their families for the crime of throwing rocks at armored vehicles. Nor do they care when these children are crammed into over-crowded prison cells, having no idea when they might be allowed to return home.
But Munther cares. So do I. And so should the church of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
Take a moment to watch this youtube video from the independent journalist, Abby Martin, as Munther gives her a tour of his neighborhood in the Aida refugee camp.
Munther was arrested by Israeli soldiers on December 27th for the “crime” of walking down a Bethlehem street with a sign in his hands. He was marching peacefully with others who were protesting Israel’s habit of jailing Palestinian children such as Ahed Tamimi.
Hear Ahed describe her life under military occupation. As a 16 year old advocate for Palestinian rights, Ahed had the audacity to slap the Israeli soldier who, just the day before, shot her cousin in the head. She is now in prison, facing years of imprisonment.
Israel’s Minister of Education believes that the teenager should receive a life-sentence. A prominent Israeli journalist has advocated vigilante justice, saying, “In the case of girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark without witnesses or cameras.”
That’s the state of Israel for you.
My friend, Munther was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 5 years probation, for the “crime” of peacefully defending the rights of Palestinian children such as Ahed – while holding a sign with her picture on it, no less! – to be treated humanely and, most of all, justly.
I cannot think of a more noble cause. Yet, it is a cause that the United States and American evangelicalism/fundamentalism largely ignores.
At his sentencing hearing, Munther told the judge:
“[It] is my right to express and defend my people; I exercise this right in the territories of the Palestinian National Authority, and you are not responsible for me; I will not ask you to authorize me to express my point of view … I will not ask you for a permit.”
You can see why I like this man so much. I am proud to call Munther my friend.
Munther’s daughter, a recent law school graduate, has written an article describing her father’s commitment to both non-violence and the continuing struggle for Palestinian equality.
Please sign the several petitions available through the links in this post demanding Munther’s immediate release.
Call your elected officials, telling them that American’s blind support for Israel’s human rights abuses must end.
Explain to anyone who will listen that Israel is a racist state that does not deserve American support, especially not the support of American Christians.
resistance.
the lead. What if 1,000 women sat down peacefully on a road to block access to an illegal Jewish settlement built on Palestinian farmland? What if the women allowed themselves to be tear-gassed, beaten and arrested without a single rock being thrown? Those images would be on televisions around the world – particularly if hundreds more women marched in to replace those hauled away.”
“In Gaza, Israeli army snipers shot unarmed demonstrators as if they were on a shooting range, to a chorus of rejoicing by the media and the masses…This is what the nation wants and this is what it will get. Even if soldiers kill hundreds of demonstrators in Gaza, Israel will not bat an eyelid. The reason: evil and hatred of Arabs. Gaza is never perceived as it really is, a place inhabited by people, an enormous and terrible prison, a huge site of human experimentation. Most Israelis, who — just like their prime minister — have never spoken to a single Gazan, only know that the Gaza Strip is a nest of terrorists. That’s why it’s OK to shoot them. Shocking? Yes, but true.”
violent protests confront the military force of an ethnocracy, rooted in a commitment to purity-of-blood, defending its founding ideology of racial privilege.
Cynics, however, have typically responded to pro-Gandhi idealists by pointing out the humanitarian bent of the British Empire (grossly exaggerated, by the way). They then pose an alternative scenario:
crime: protesting to defend the rights of Palestinian children held in Israel’s military prisons.
Palestinian children who are ripped from their families for the crime of throwing rocks at armored vehicles. Nor do they care when these children are crammed into over-
crowded prison cells, having no idea when they might be allowed to return home.
marching 
Israel’s Minister of Education believes that the teenager should receive a