Letter From The Editor

With conscious effort, I have maintained relationships with people holding diametrically opposed views on the conflict in Israel. It is important – we are all human beings, with our own perspectives, biases, and concerns – and there is something to learn from everyone. 

One such person recently deployed a new tactic in their persuasive attempts to figuratively coax me across the aisle, by sending me a selection of articles from Haaretz, B’Tselem, and the +972 magazine. The idea was that Jews and Israelis sharing a counter- narrative to the one I was promoting would be more palatable to me and thus provide an inducement to utterly reverse my viewpoint.

My counter to this and my explanation for the rejection of these narratives was a request to see the Palestinian equivalent of the wide range of political opinions that are available within Israeli news and journalistic sources. The response was silence. 

This is indicative of the problem here. Everybody can castigate Israeli leaders. There are voices within Israel that continue to blame Israel’s leaders for the conflict, or make accusations of disproportionality. Although perhaps diminishing, some still testify that the initial plan should have been one of negotiation for the hostages rather than military deployment. Across the political spectrum, voices abound in Israel and amongst supportive communities outside the country suggesting, debating, arguing, and publicising viewpoints that are entirely mutually exclusive. Yet where is that in Palestinian spaces? Other than brief moments of isolated exasperation and hatred of Hamas, there is no vibrant press, no contradictory voices, and no recognition that in a population of millions, disparate viewpoints must exist, as they do in every group across the world.

A possible response is that it is Israel’s fault. Somehow, apparently, Palestinians in Ramallah are limited in what they can say about the Palestinian Authority government because of some strange Jewish machinations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Yet I am sceptical of such an argument. Our own Jewish press before the Second World War, for example, contained everything from desperate pleas for an embrace of Zionism to complete denunciations of the idea. The British Liberal Cabinet following the conclusion of the First World War, for example, managed to contain Jews reflective of both sides. Edwin Montagu was an outspoken anti-Zionist, while Herbert Samuel and Rufus Isaacs certainly were not. Both of these latter two men are recalled in Israeli cities, with one of them triggering the deepest pain I feel when in the country – Israelis pronounce the Reading bus terminal just north of the Tel Aviv port as ‘reading’ rather than after the city which gave title to Rufus Issacs, the first Marquess of Reading. If Jews could have such arguments, and we can continue to recognise that not all Jews supported Zionism and that not all Jews do so today, and that ‘support’ means different things to different people, why is there no ability for the same to exist on the Palestinian side?

This seems to me to touch on something even deeper. The harrowing scenes of the bizarre rituals performed by Hamas as they paraded hostages have been excused and celebrated across the world. What does one expect of Hamas, we are told by those hostile to Israel, when they are treated as they are? Of course they have kidnapped innocents and murdered babies or lost the remains of a mother – they are Palestinians facing the greatest warmonger of modern times, Benjamin Netanyahu. The idea that Palestinians have choice and – shocker – should be responsible for their actions, has eluded even the most insightful of observers. They cannot promote counter-narratives, because ‘Israel’. They cannot receive suggestions that having a ‘democratically elected leader’ means that elections actually have to happen, because ‘Israel’. They cannot even be held responsible for murdering innocent children, because ‘Israel’. Though, of course, it is critical to remember that this excuse does not always work – it is not an appropriate explanation for things like the Arab life expectancy in the West Bank being higher than in any other country in the Middle East. 

Really, this comes down to one thing. I can accept that bad people do bad things, but where are the families and communities of the bad people coaxing them to do good? Why are their voices never heard? The answer is simple: because a certain narrative is needed, and any other viewpoints are suppressed, including with violence. Hamas routinely executes Palestinians for supposed ‘collaboration with Israel’. This, amongst many narratives, does not fit in with the accepted viewpoint, and thus must be dispensed with. 

So, where does that leave us? We must recognise the humanity of Palestinian people, as we recognise the humanity of all members of the human race. Yet this includes reminding the world that they must be held responsible for the evil that they have committed, and that Palestinians themselves must have the freedom to critique their own leaders. Until then, peace will be further away than ever, and the circumstances will continue harming the lives of Palestinians as well as Israelis.