- Dec 6, 2009
- 77,867
- 4,177
- 1,815
The Palestine question is moving out of the realm of military power and global elites and into the street.
--------------------------------------
For the first time, ordinary people around the world could see the lie that Israel was fighting an existential war against a dangerous foe. The images and stories of Israeli policy of breaking the bones of rock-throwing children made their way into the living rooms of masses, where discussions of morality were injected into the conversation on Palestine. This was "the street", the global space of public participation where words like freedom, justice, liberation, resonate. For the first time, media around the world questioned and criticised Israel. The plight of Palestinians was becoming recognised as an indigenous people's fight for survival against Zionist expansionism and ethnoreligious supremacy.
All of these tactics are meant to silence debate, to intimidate people of conscience and to unravel unified calls for justice. Remarkably, not one of the suggested tactics attempts to put forth a compelling moral counter argument to BDS.
And the reason for that is simple. The spiritual poverty of a colonial state obsessed with creating and maintaining a particular demographic profile does not appeal to popular notions of morality. The assertion of a military state's security needs in order to justify ongoing destruction of the indigenous population is not convincing in this era of information, where people can see what it looks like to demolish a family's home whose principle offence is not being Jewish, and know that this happens nearly every day; to see what it looks like to arrest children with slight bodies and fresh urine stains from fear in their pants, and know that there are hundreds more just like them who languish in Israeli jails, tortured, without charge or trial and without access to their parents; to watch videos of terrifying night raids that burst through people's homes and drag the young and old from their beds, haul them off to a grim fate, and know that this is routine; to read report after report from human rights organisations detailing the terrible minutiae of daily cruelty and humiliation, and know that this is Israeli state policy that has been in effect for decades.
Palestine can be won in a street fight - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
--------------------------------------
For the first time, ordinary people around the world could see the lie that Israel was fighting an existential war against a dangerous foe. The images and stories of Israeli policy of breaking the bones of rock-throwing children made their way into the living rooms of masses, where discussions of morality were injected into the conversation on Palestine. This was "the street", the global space of public participation where words like freedom, justice, liberation, resonate. For the first time, media around the world questioned and criticised Israel. The plight of Palestinians was becoming recognised as an indigenous people's fight for survival against Zionist expansionism and ethnoreligious supremacy.
All of these tactics are meant to silence debate, to intimidate people of conscience and to unravel unified calls for justice. Remarkably, not one of the suggested tactics attempts to put forth a compelling moral counter argument to BDS.
And the reason for that is simple. The spiritual poverty of a colonial state obsessed with creating and maintaining a particular demographic profile does not appeal to popular notions of morality. The assertion of a military state's security needs in order to justify ongoing destruction of the indigenous population is not convincing in this era of information, where people can see what it looks like to demolish a family's home whose principle offence is not being Jewish, and know that this happens nearly every day; to see what it looks like to arrest children with slight bodies and fresh urine stains from fear in their pants, and know that there are hundreds more just like them who languish in Israeli jails, tortured, without charge or trial and without access to their parents; to watch videos of terrifying night raids that burst through people's homes and drag the young and old from their beds, haul them off to a grim fate, and know that this is routine; to read report after report from human rights organisations detailing the terrible minutiae of daily cruelty and humiliation, and know that this is Israeli state policy that has been in effect for decades.
Palestine can be won in a street fight - Opinion - Al Jazeera English