Some may think that the conflict in Palestine began in 1948, but its roots go back decades before.
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It has been over a month since Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza began. It has been ruthless, bloody, and heartbreaking for millions of people around the world. So far, no major powers are taking action to end Israel’s assault. According to Relief Web, at least 18,000 Palestinians have died, 70% of them women and children, as of December 10. The conflict is one of the deadliest points in Israeli-Palestinian history. There are many arguments defending Israel, but do they hold up? What does the future look like for Palestine?
Origins of Palestine’s plight
The invasion is the latest of the many intervals in the Palestinian struggle. Settler colonialism is its roots, as Israel is supplanting Palestinian society in place of an ethnonationalist Jewish one. A common defense of Israel is that it’s simply the original homeland for Jews, with Palestinians being the real colonizers. But according to many Zionist ideologues, Zionism being the ideology adopted by Israel, this view doesn’t hold up.
For one, Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism and the founder of the World Zionist Organization, stated many times that the movement was colonialist. He stated in The Jewish State that Jewish colonization would occur under a chartered company in England that would have “colonial tasks.” Besides using the words “colony” and “colonist” numerous other times, racist colonialist ideas also showed up. He stated that the Jewish state would be a “rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”
Words from Zionists Themselves
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From the mouths of Zionists
If this isn’t convincing enough more Zionist thinkers can add on. Je’ev Zabotinsky, founder of the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group in British Palestine, wrote in The Iron Wall that “It is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.” He even went on to compare Palestinians to the Aztecs, and Sioux. David Ben Gurion, the founder of Israel spoke of the unjust nature of Zionist settlement. He stated in a June 7 1938 speech that, "In our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us. But let us not ignore the truth among ourselves." He elaborates,"Politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down." This speech is cited from Simha Flapan's Zionism and the Palestinians, pages 141-142.
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Zionism is Ethnonationalism
These quotes show how Zionism did not form merely to create a peaceful Jewish state. It formed in order to have an ethnonationalist colony in the Middle East, unabashedly so. According to Zionist thinkers, savage indigenous people were inhabiting Palestine, and Jews were to be their civilizers. Ironically, allegations of antisemitism against anti-Zionists are themselves antisemitic. These criticisms conflate self-determination with the creation of an ethnostate. In them is the implication that it's core to the Jewish identity to take part in settler colonialism. Antisemites can turn this on its head, as they can use this to say that Jews advocate for a genocidal ideology. If any other ethnicity replaced Jew in this ideology, it'd be problematic, but because it weaponizes Judaism some it as having good intentions.
Eventually, ethnic cleansing would mark the founding of Israel. During the 1948 war, seeing the country’s founding, 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in an event named the Nakba. Despite making up 33% of the population, Israel occupied 77% of Palestine by the end of the war.
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Colonization and consolidation
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Over the past 75 years, the boarders between Palestine and Israel have changed drastically and in some areas the boarders still are not defined.
According to the BBC, “Israel has had a de facto border with Gaza since it pulled its troops and settlers out in 2005, but Gaza and the West Bank are considered a single occupied entity by the UN, and the official borders have not yet been determined.” (
Photo Credit: Flickr created by Marita Cosma )
A rise in tensions
Gaza received many of them after the forced removal, which explains its high population density today. From then on, Israel would continue to enforce its ethnostate with The Law of Return in 1950. The law stated that every Jew is an Israeli citizen by right, and would be assisted in settling in Israel. The Absentee Property Law was also passed, declaring property left from ethnically cleansed Palestinians as legitimate for Israelis to acquire. This violates the Right of Return, a UN resolution upholding the right of refugees to return to their homes. Despite thinking of itself as champions of peace, the UN does not want to start an operation to enforce this resolution in Palestine.
The ethnostate would also fulfill its role as a Western outpost in Asia, just as Herzl wanted. It invaded Egypt in 1956, occupied Gaza and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War in 1967. Sinai, conquered from Egypt after the 1967 war, was completely returned by 1982 as a result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
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Its role as an ally
Israel has committed many more crimes, but throughout history it has always been a key Western ally, checking anti-West sentiment in its region. Its role is vital because the Middle East is important for many reasons. Geographically, it’s between Asia, Africa, and Europe, giving whoever controls it strong geopolitical power. It’s also oil-rich, with some of its nations even causing an economic crisis in 1973 by cutting off their supply to Israel-aligned nations. Unfortunately, Israel has largely succeeded, maintaining Western influence and enjoying diplomacy with some Arab states. Egypt, a former socialist and Pan-Arabist enemy of Israel, is one of them. The West would lose out on many of the benefits it extracts from the region if Palestine became liberated.
Drew Biri, teacher of AP US history and advisor of Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society, agrees with this assessment. He stated that due to “Its location to the Arab World and the Middle East in general that we can gain access to military intelligence.” Even in this assessment, he agreed that Israel hasn’t been conductive for peace. Its benefit is rooted in Western military dominance.
Hamas’ Resistance
As a result of all the oppression Palestinians have faced, Hamas launched an attack against Israel on October 7, attacking a festival, and taking hostages. Israel responded with a brutal bombing campaign, a crippling blockade, and an ethnic cleansing. Contrary to popular belief, Hamas is a popular organization. Polling from November 22 to December 2, the PCSPR confirmed that about 69% of all Palestinians were satisfied with Hamas’ performance. 72% also agree that its attack on October 7 was just. Ever since October 27, Northern Gaza has seen an intense ground war.
This recent offensive against Israel has sharply divided the country, with many supporting Israel’s actions, but a poll by Data for Progress confirmed that a majority of Americans at least want a ceasefire, 66% to be exact. On the contrary, the US government has continued to support Israel, sending warships and readying 2,000 troops to defend it from foreign intervention. Even though the Senate blocked $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel, albeit on partisan lines, it’s still continued to send arms. Biri agrees with most Americans when he says that although we spend a lot of money on Israel, the benefits don’t really outweigh the cost.
Myths and Facts
Israel spread a lot of misinformation about the attacks on October 7. For example, it never verified its claims about Hamas beheading 40 babies. It lowered the Israeli death toll from 1,400 to 1,200, and even then many of those killed were serving in the military. Israel’s list on X of the dated 1,400 dead Israelis corroborates this. Many of them had army terms in their names, as shown by MintPress News. The state tries to frame the resistance as killing more civilians than it actually does to push a narrative. There are still some objections though. Biri still agrees that Hamas is the aggressor, saying “These actions are done to get Hamas to return those hostages, can you negotiate with a terrorist organization? I doubt it.” Do these views hold up to the facts?
Criticism of the resistance
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Aljazeera.com reports that since the fighting began on October 7 between Israel and Hamas, 15,242 Palestinians have died (with over 6,000 of those deaths being children) and around 1,200 Israeli deaths have occurred. (
Photo Credit: Flickr creator Alisdare_Hickson)
Does self-defense really apply?
One argument people make in to defend Israel is that it has a right to defend itself. It is an argument echoed by many of Israel’s backers, such as the US through Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as the UK in a speech to the UN. The reasoning is that Israel is responding to an attack that killed civilians.
One problem with this reasoning is that it decontextualizes why Hamas attacked in the first place, that being an attempt to liberate all of Palestine against 75 years of Israeli oppression, as outlined by the chairman of its political bureau. Although Israeli civilians have been killed, it’s ignored that the root of the conflict is Israel, a state that not only is built on ethnic cleansing but is currently placing settlers in the West Bank, an occupied territory, as well as blockading Gaza ever since it nominally pulled out in 2005.
Even with the conflict being decontextualized, Israel's conduct goes far beyond self-defense. Besides an indiscriminate bombing campaign, 1.1 million people were forcibly removed from northern Gaza to the south. Despite promising them safety many evacuees were still targeted. A leaked document even detailed the possibility of removing all Gazans to Sinai. With all its actions considered, Israel has no right to defend itself, since it is a fundamentally invalid state. Invoking self-defense for Israel is like invoking self-defense for Germany during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
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Islamism
Another argument people make is that Hamas’ politics are not any better. The resistance group is often dismissed as an Islamist, terrorist, and antisemitic organization, but this view is reductive and unfair. The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood may have accepted it as a member from its formation in 1987, but in 2017 the resistance group broke away from it. Although this doesn’t disprove that Islamic Fundamentalists aren’t in Hamas, it does show its attempt to deradicalize.
But even if Islamic Fundamentalists are in Hamas, this doesn’t invalidate the organization. Its priority is fighting the 75-year-long ethnic oppression Israel has imposed on Palestine, giving it legitimacy to many Palestinians. Sympathy should be given because they grew up in an undeveloped, abhorrent environment that hinders any organization of social movements. Social conservatism outside of the West is more common simply because there are fewer opportunities for education. Where religion may be their only way to cope, it is understandable that some Palestinians become radical.
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Is it terrorism?
This leads to terrorism, which many people tend to reduce Hamas' actions to. It does attack civilians, but there is more nuance here than it seems. Israel is a settler colony still in its early stages. The indigenous people still make up a large enough population to resist, and settlers continue to steal land. This makes attacks on people in Israel more analogous to the attacks on settlements that Indigenous people did in the Americas in colonial times.
The root of the problem is the decades of murder, displacement, and dehumanization of Palestinians by Israel. If terrorism includes Hamas killing civilians, then it is hypocritical not to include the much more heinous actions of Israel. According to a poll (15) conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute from October 18-19, 83.4% of Jewish Israelis think that harm done to Palestinians should not be considered. In a more recent poll, from November 27-30 the results were nearly the same. 87.2% of Jewish Israelis thought that the IDF's conduct should be similar to how it was before the ceasefire.
Due to the consensus in these polls, it's safe to say that Israelis are overwhelmingly callous and believe in their settler project. It may not be excusable, but it is not at all surprising that attacks are done against them. Terrorism is being used as a politically charged word since Israel's manner of conducting war kills much more civilians than Hamas could ever kill.
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Supposed antisemitism
As for antisemitism, this criticism is also oversimplified, and fails to look at Israeli violence in Palestine. Even though the group rejected antisemitism in their 2017 charter, people still point to phrases in the 1988 Covenant, pointing to sentences such as “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews),”. This is misleading because the charter also makes many references to fighting Zionism, giving more context to these statements. Furthermore, even if there are some antisemites in Hamas, it’s understandable since Israel constantly tries to equate Judaism with Zionism.
It’s also hypocritical because Western governments accept that Nazi battalions fight with Ukraine, such as the Azov battalion. Ukraine is a part of a larger antisemitic acceptance of the Double Genocide Theory. It equates the crimes of the Soviet Union with those of Nazi Germany in order to minimize the latter’s much worse atrocities. Much of Post-Communist Eastern Europe, now composed of NATO and EU members, has seen the deployment of this ahistorical argument. With all this taken into account, critics of supposed antisemitism in Hamas are showing a racist bias when they do not show the same concern for the worse antisemitism many of the West's allies hold.
Israel’s Atrocities
Israel is continuing to murder Palestinians with impunity. It announced on October 9 that Gaza would have a total blockade imposed on it. The strip has stopped receiving food, fuel, and electricity. As a result, conditions in Gaza deteriorated even more. A lack of fuel has affected hospitals, crippling their ability to serve the sick and injured. One was the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the only cancer hospital in Gaza. It shut down on November 1. The destruction has completely stopped all water treatment, as October 17 saw the shut down of the last desalination plant. Even before the war, 97% of all water was undrinkable according to Euro-Med Monitor.
The bombing campaign is in an unprecedented level of cruelty. As of December 8, 60% of all housing in Gaza was damaged or destroyed according to the UN. Due to the sheer destruction, 1.9 million Palestinians have been internally displaced. There is the frequent targeting of Hospitals, Schools, ambulance convoys, humanitarian corridors, and more. 63 journalists have died, according to the CPJ and telecommunications blackouts have occurred multiple times. To justify these atrocities, Israel claims that these buildings are being used as secret Hamas bases, and that the civilians in them are simply body shields. This narrative has been largely accepted by US media, even though little evidence is presented to back it up.
Israel’s Atrocities
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West Bank
An ignored aspect of the current conflict is the West Bank. Filled with settlers, attacks against Palestinians have ramped up. 275 Palestinians have died, including 63 children, as of November 16 according to Al Jazeera. This is due to raids by Israeli forces, as well as settler attacks. Violence from the latter has always been prevalent in the West Bank, targeting Olive Trees, the agricultural source of income for many Palestinians, as well as contributing to displacement. According to The Nation, by November 15 at least 16 communities have been forcibly removed.
The Ceasefire
From November 24 to November 30, a ceasefire was finally implemented in Gaza. This was in spite of the fact that the US does not want one, as evidenced by the fact that on October 18, and December 8 it vetoed a UN resolution for humanitarian ceasefires in Gaza.
During the temporary break, 240 Palestinians and 110 Israelis were released. Contrary to what some believe, Israeli hostages overall lived in decent conditions, as some freed hostages described to AP News. They were fed well, and some children were even given sweets. Conditions did deteriorate overtime, but this was due to Israel’s cut-off of all supplies into Gaza. Unlike Biri, Habiba Fahmy, an Egyptian Arab-American and Vice President of the French Honor Society, sees the Palestinian side. She commented that there should be a permanent ceasefire, and that ultimately “Palestinians don’t want anything bad for innocent people, they just want their homes to be left alone and their families to stop being killed.” Meanwhile, released Palestinians have reported that they routinely faced beatings, and torture and were deprived of basic supplies such as food and water.
The Ceasefire
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Israel breaks the ceasefire
During the ceasefire, many Palestinians tried to return back to their homes in Northern Gaza. Israel, which had already forcibly removed millions of them in an ethnic cleansing, immediately broke the ceasefire by murdering 2 and injuring 11 on November 24. Jabalia refugee camp and Indonesian Hospital were also attacked by the IDF. Over 100 Palestinians alone were killed in the former. Claims of attacks by Hamas have been more spurious, as claims of a Hamas bombing have only came from the IDF.
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The Palestinian Reaction
Nevertheless, Palestinians saw the ceasefire as a sign of hope. The nearly two months of genocidal warfare on them had finally ended, and they were able to feel relief knowing that they might not have had a bomb dropped on them. Even then, Israel saw these celebrations as intolerable slights. Interior Security Minister Ben Gvir said that these actions done by Palestinians were to be prohibited. He stated that "Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism." Although it was extended by November 27, many wanted a permanent end to the fighting. They had been unjustly removed from their homes in the north, and wanted to return. As soon as the ceasefire ended, 175 Palestinians were killed by airstrikes by Israel.
Genocide of Palestine
Israel’s manner overwhelmingly fulfills the terms of genocide by the United Nations definition. It states that genocide means the “Intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group”. The first term, killing the targeted groups members, the second term, causing serious or bodily harm to the group, and the third term, imposing conditions that would in whole or in part destroy a group, all apply to Israel. It is murdering Palestinians no matter their age, occupation, and political alignment. The death rate is so high, that 47% of the population in Gaza is under 18. Statista estimated that the infant mortality rate for Israel was 2.7 in Israel, while the World Bank estimated Gaza’s rate to be 22.7, larger by almost a factor of 10.
Intent has been shown in multiple ways. Israel conflates mass murdering civilians with fighting Hamas, saying that it must win in order to defend the free world. There is the constant dehumanization of Palestinians, being called animals, rats, and snakes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even called Gaza the “city of evil”. Since Israel is attacking Hamas, the prime resistance of the indigenous people of Palestine, this treatment must extend to all Palestinians. People will continue to join Hamas as long as Israel oppresses Palestinians, and the only way for Israel to deal with this is through genocide.
What’s Next for Palestine?
Western governments and companies have pushed back against the anti-Israel movement. 37 US states have employed anti-BDS laws as of July 2023, justifying them under the guise of fighting antisemitism. The ADL, a prominent organization supposedly fighting back against anti-Jewishness, also lists anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. This is contributing to the narrative of a massive rise in antisemitism that media outlets such as CNN report on. Companies are firing people for “antisemitic” social media posts. Nevertheless, many people still fear the issue. Samuel Rubin, a Jewish American and member of the International Thespian Society who’s ancestors immigrated from Europe after World War 2, states that there’s been moments where Jewish people have been attacked, “Even though they have no influence on what goes on in Israel.”
At the same time, it seems that the anti-Israel movement has been gaining more traction due to their atrocities in Gaza. Its goals are a ceasefire, the diplomatic and economic isolation of Israel, and a cut-off of military aid until Israel ends its oppression of the Palestinians. Protests are growing and growing, with the National March on Washington on November 4, seeing 300,000 people attend, as well as a protest in London enjoying around the same amount. On October 17, the US capitol was taken over by Jewish protestors and was attended by Palestinian representative Rashida Tlaib.
Another Point of View
A rise in anti-Arab racism has also been reported. CBS reported that there was a 216% increase in islamophobia and anti-Arab racism from October 7 to November 4. Habiba agrees. She said that there has definitely been a rise in assaults, and that she worries for her and her family. In October, a 6-year old Palestinian-American was stabbed to death in what authorities thought was a hate crime. In November, 3 Palestinians college students were shot and wounded in what was also called a hate crime. Seemingly, the question of which bigotry has become worse is much more complex than people think it is.
More people are joining BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions). It is a major organization calling for the economic, political, and cultural boycott of Israel until it decolonizes Palestine and gives equal rights to all.
What is BDS
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What does it boycott?
Its main boycotts include Puma, HP, Siemens, and Israeli food and drink companies such as Sabra. The organization has also endorsed more grassroots campaigns against McDonalds, Burger King, Papa John’s, and so on in a released statement. Starbucks has also been the target of a boycott, reportedly losing $11 billion according to The Cradle.
Conclusion
Overall, although the anti-Israel movement has a long way to go. Accusations of supporting terrorism, genocide, and antisemitism are constantly launched against it. Nevertheless, it seems to have stronger support than before. Both sides agree, as Samuel said that “People can do what they can to protest.” Habiba went beyond, saying that people can donate, petition, boycott and so on. Just like with South Africa, after decades of organization, support may change in their favor as an increasing amount of people are made aware of Palestine’s struggle.