"We have these problems here in Australia and in
communities across the world. This is a society with trauma to its
core."
Dancing and jubilation in the streets of Sydney, Toronto,
Paris, New York, London, Montreal, Marseilles, etc etc over the
last couple of days after Hamas gunmen put bullets into
hundreds of unarmed civilians living in the Israeli towns bordering
Gaza.
It ain’t surprising, our Muslim brothers have never hid their
hatred of Jews. As Hitler’s old pal The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
told his Arab brothers and sisters from Berlin in 1944,
“The Jews bring the world poverty, trouble and disaster. They
are monsters and the basis for all evil in the world ….Arabs, rise
as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever
you find them. God is with you.”
And, so, in front of the Sydney Opera House lit up with the
Israeli flag hundreds of Australians screamed “Gas the Jews!”
In Times Square, an African-American preacher delighted at the
killing of “hipsters”.
Stores in London vandalised. Green and red fireworks filling the
night skies in all cities.
Meanwhile, party-goers hunted and murdered by the hundreds, kids
left orphans their parents’ last act to shield ’em from the Hamas
gun, the corpse of a naked young German
girl, limbs broken, dumped in the back of a ute and paraded through
Gaza City as kids spat on the “filthy Jew”.
Biz as usual in Gaza, where teenage girls have their throats
slit for immorality; where gay men are routinely thrown from
buildings. where blood feuds, like BeachGrit, fester for
eternity.
Whatever you think of the political origins of the Israel-Arab
conflict, whether you believe in the Zionist enterprise or regard
it as the worst sort of colonisation, wandering through towns
shooting unarmed people ain’t cool in any language.
So I was surprised when Lucy Small, a renowned surf feminist
and champion of gay and trans rights, with whom I
agree on a variety of issues, posted a series of stories about the
conflict including a story from Al Jazeera with the caption,
“Palestinians in Gaza made history as they escaped the world’s
largest prison”.
Yeah, before murdering scores of innocents and unfettered for
hours before the arrival of Israeli troops.
I jumped into Lucy (@saltwaterpilgrim)’s DMs and was hit with
the usual sorta patronising tone.
“How much do you know about the history and have you researched
any of it?”
Sigh.
I wish I’d never opened a damn book about the whole thing for
what a Pandora’s Box it has become. I don’t have any skin in this
game. I wanted to learn about the teams at play. And so I read, and
read, and watched, and listened, and toured. For years.
For the sake of clarity, I support the secular Jewish state as
dreamed of by the anti-religious Zionists and birthed into life by
the UN, with Russian David Ben-Gurion at the helm.
Of course, having been cut a piece of the Palestinian Mandate
for a Jewish homeland by the UN on May 1948, the newly minted state
of Israel began a nearly two-year existential war against
surrounding Arab countries. That, after a year of civil war,
between Arab and Jew.
And the Jews fought for every kibbutz, every road, every town
and every city. Even when Jerusalem was besieged, the newly-minted
Israeli forces would take terrible casualties, bringing supplies in
through the long, mountainous road that linked Tel Aviv with
Jerusalem. Go there and you can still see the wrecked trucks on the
side of the highway.
In 1967 Arab figured they’d have another swing at the Jews. But
the Israelis, who had informers at every tier of Arab government,
pre-empted ’em and wiped out their enemies in six days. Six years
later, the Arabs had another shot. This time it was closer, but the
Jews won.
I loathe the settler movement and the government’s shift to the
hard right although I understand the need for walls, for
checkpoints and so on.
It ain’t nice but if you don’t want stabbings in the streets,
your citizens being mutilated in various forms, bombing, hit and
runs etc, you gotta take a cautious approach to who gets
in.
No killings, no walls.
Anyway, a lot of blah blah blah between us and then I
asked, “How do you
stand with a people and a diabolical regime that actively targets LGBTQ+ for
death, as well as honour killings?
Platitudes aside, I really want to know how you reconcile it
all.”
Lucy replied,
“In regards to this – we have these problems here in Australia
and in communities across the world. This is a society with trauma
to its core. The end of occupation may allow for healing. It is
common in communities affected by armed violence, rates of domestic
violence and violence against women are higher – it’s a tragic part
of war. If Palestinian society is going to heal and progress, it
needs to be able to do so on its own terms, which is why
self-determination is so important.”
To wit, Hamas, and the good citizens of Gaza, are bad because of
the Jews, at least that’s how I read it.
Question to the gallery: would Gaza become a utopia if the
Jewish state was to miraculously vanish? Or more of the same?
(Editor’s note:
Lucy also wanted to add, and in full:
“I condemn the actions of Hamas and the violent response of the
Israeli military. The violence is senseless.”
But.
“Palestinian people have lived under violent Israeli occupation
since 1967 when Israel annexed what was legally Palestinian land.
Thousands of civilians have been killed by the Israeli military in
the last decade – before this attack the Israeli military killed
247 Palestinian civilians this year alone and we haven’t seen
anything about those deaths in the news. In Gaza, people live under
siege – they are boxed into what has been described as an open air
prison. The Israeli’s State’s treatment of Palestinians has been
confirmed by Amnesty International as constituting apartheid.
Targeting non military targets is illegal, unjustified and crimes
against humanity – state sanctioned or otherwise. If we are going
to condemn the actions of Hamas, we must condemn the violence of
the Israeli state. I stand with the Palestinian and Israeli people
calling for an end to the violence, an end to the occupation and
for peace.”)
