Say what you will about Piers Morgan, but the following interview is hard-hitting and apt. I can't imagine North American journalists going after someone in this manner.
In my previous post I discussed how media shape the narratives by which we interpret the world. I used as its example the near-hysteria surrounding changes in the capital-gains attribution rate that the media have fuelled.
The same narrative structure seems to be permeating coverage of the widespread campus protests and activism surrounding Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza. To follow the 'official' narrative, such protests are little more than rabid demonstrations of anti-Semitism and promotion of the destruction of Israel.
For the uncritical mind, that story is all one needs to know. However, for those not content to glide along the surface of world events, it is woefully inadequate and grossly misleading. There is much, much more to the demonstrations than the cartoonish portrayals media are promulgating.
First, we hear of how violent the campus demonstrations are. However, in every news video I have seen, the 'violence' seems to start when the authorities move in to oust and arrest the demonstrators. I wonder if anyone has coverage of the minutes before the police arrive. Were the demonstrators rampaging, or were they simply strongly proclaiming their goals of highlighting the atrocities being committed in Gaza, as well as demands for transparency and divestment from Israel by the universities?
Another part of the narrative given special emphasis is that some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus because of the demonstrations. While I don't doubt that there have been incidents where direct threats have been made, one has to consider a couple of things: is the very act of criticizing Israel part of what is making students feel unsafe? Protests are, by their nature, uncomfortable events for many. As well, students need to acknowledge and accept that there are many Jewish students who are part of the protest.
Both points seem to be addressed in a NYT article:
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the country say Israel is committing what they see as genocide against the Palestinian people, and they aim to keep a spotlight on the suffering. But some Jewish students who support Israel and what they see as its right to defend itself against Hamas say the protests have made them afraid to walk freely on campus. They hear denunciations of Zionism and calls for a Palestinian uprising as an attack on Jews themselves.
Many Jewish students taking part in the current protests say they are doing so as an expression of their Jewish values that emphasize social justice and equality. Encampments have hosted Shabbat dinners and Passover seders. At Columbia, one student said that donors have supplied kosher meals.
Samuel Law, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin who is Jewish and involved in the protests, was inspired by the encampments popping up around the country. “I strongly believe that the university should be there for us to care about what we care about,” he said.
For me, the protests are reminiscent of the many campus demonstrations and sit-ins that took place in the sixties during America's war on Vietnam. The protestors were often portrayed as Communists and/or disloyal to their country. The very act of putting one's beliefs on the line became, to many Americans, an act of alarming subversion. One remembers the Kent State massacres, and we are reminded that freedom of expression is very, very conditional. Like today, express your views freely, but only if they accord with our version of the status quo.
Such an approach is ultimately counter-productive, as noted in The Guardian, never a slave to conventional narratives.
The aftermath at Columbia University should be instructive for other universities facing similar protests, the repression and suspension of students leads to more sustained protest and broader participation. More students join in, if only just to witness. By suspending so many students, they now have very little to keep them from organizing and drawing attention to the encampments popping up across the US.
There is some truth to the popular protest slogan: “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”
Perhaps I am an outlier in all of this, but the very act of protest, in my view, is a vital part of any democracy. To delegitimize such is to deny democracy itself, and more than that, it is a repression of the human spirit that seeks justice.
At the beginning of this post is an excerpt from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. On first glance he seems to be endorsing people who drop bombs when he says to [f]ear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live ... for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. However, what he means is that when efforts at suppression and repression end, (i.e. the bombs) it means that the human spirit, or Manself, as he calls it, has withered and died. If we consider bombs both literally and metaphorically, it means to fear a time people have stopped "fighting the good fight," i.e., standing up for their beliefs and inviting retribution; the consequent impulse to squelch us is no longer needed.
And that, without question, would be a truly a dystopian world.
UPDATE: Thanks to Anon for a reference to an article by Justin Ling, which you can read here.
On Wednesday, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper was in Jerusalem, shaking hands with the butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to his tweet, Harper witnessed "an Israel scarred by the unprovoked horrors of Oct. 7, but also united in its determination to end the threat of Hamas once and for all."
"Unprovoked." "Ending the threat of Hamas." Phrases being repeatedly used to justify the unjustifiable.
It is no doubt a human tendency to try to interpret the world along absolutist terms; things are either good or bad, thereby circumventing the hard work that critical thinking requires. For his fellow travellers, Stephen Harper is providing such a service.
But historical context is needed.
The Hamas commander named the attack "Al Aqsa Floods" saying it was meant to avenge Israel's brutal attacks on Al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem — long a flashpoint site — during Ramadan in 2021.
Whatever one makes of that statement, it's a reminder that one can't look at what's happening without context. Insisting on erasing the context of current events — as seen with the repetition of the word "unprovoked" — is very much in Israel's interest. It allows Israel to position itself as the innocent party and to reduce the unspeakable violence it has unleashed to a "they-asked-for-it" rhetoric.
But there is much more involved here, years of abuse and repression that the world refuses to acknowledge.
There is so much mutual pain in the region that to ignore the underlying conditions of violence is to create conditions that lead to violence.
Some of these conditions include decades of repressive and vicious Israeli military occupation in Palestinian territories, with Israel routinely displacing, imprisoning and killing Palestinians. Israel's illegal blockade segregated Gazans from the world for years by banning them from travelling outside. The majority of Gazans are refugees who face sweeping restrictions on the entry and exit of goods. Israel even controlled the flow of electricity and water; more than 90 per cent of the water in Gaza was unfit for consumption before Oct. 7. A Washington Post report found there had been no natural surface water in Gaza since the early 2000s.
no matter how Israel treats Palestinians, whether it attacks Gaza's hospitals, kills and maims children, doctors, academics and journalists, or whether the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must take action to prevent genocidal violence by its armed forces, in Israel's view and in the eyes of its Western allies, it remains the wronged party.
It is this mentality that Harper has shamefully tapped into, making it easier to minimize and justify Israel's ongoing atrocities.
Decades ago, George Orwell warned us about the destructive effects of political language. Sadly, it seems we have learned little to nothing in the intervening years.
No matter where you stand on the Israeli war against Gazans, undeniable is the fact that many, many innocent lives are being lost. One report estimates that 100 children a day are killed, and that 70% of the casualties are women and children. And the war shows no sign of ending.
According to two respected journalists, there is little doubt that the responsibility for this ongoing carnage rests on the shoulders of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.
Thie Star's Martin Regg Cohn sees personal self-preservation as the key to understanding Netanyahu's merciless war of retribution for the October Hamas attack on Israel. Speaking of the unseemly coalition of reprobates with which the leader has allied himself, he writes,
That he should consort with so dishonourable a cabal of cabinet ministers — renegades who violated the law, racists who breached human rights, radicals who scorned democratic norms — could only be explained by Netanyahu’s utter desperation. When I interviewed him as prime minister in the late 1990s, he was consumed by fear of losing political power; today, he worries about losing his personal freedom.
Netanyahu stands accused of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three ongoing cases. His best defence was to go on the offence, perpetrating a constitutional coup to perpetuate his grip on power and protect him from the judicial process.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? One only need look to the U.S. and Trump's attempt to subvert justice by getting re-elected. Before that eventuality, he is doing everything he can to get all charges against him dismissed. Netanyahu has followed similar tactics.
Emboldened and empowered, Netanyahu attempted to jury-rig the judicial process by directing his coalition of lawbreakers to undermine the legal system at its core. His government spearheaded the gutting of the Supreme Court’s traditional powers, curbing its authority to review the “reasonableness” of any legislation rammed through by his parliamentary majority while protecting him from being unseated by the attorney general.
Well-respected journalist Gwynne Dyer has a similarly withering assessment of the Israeli leader.
The people around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regularly describe the war in Gaza as "existential," but that’s nonsense. The "existence" of Israel is in no danger whatever. The only thing facing an existential risk is Netanyahu’s government, which would immediately collapse if the shooting stops.
The extreme right-wing and religious nationalist parties who made Netanyahu’s coalition possible are hoping that prolonged fighting will drive the Palestinians (22,000 dead so far) out of part or all of the Gaza Strip and/or the West Bank.
As national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir put it, the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.”
They want that land for more Jewish settlements, and if Netanyahu made peace they would instantly abandon him.
Even worse than that, from Netanyahu’s point of view, is the fact that a return to "normal" would allow his trial on corruption charges to resume. That could ultimately send him to jail, and anything is better than that. Even endless war.
Is endless war what Netanyahu is counting on? Given that he has no strategy, Dyer offers this:
Why else would Netanyahu now be preparing for a backup war with Hezbollah in Lebanon? He and his ministers are constantly warning that such a war may be "necessary" — “the situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue,” one said — even though it is obvious that Hezbollah does not want a war now.
Hezbollah is a formidable organization that fought the Israeli army to a standstill in their last major confrontation in 2006. Deliberately going to war with it when Israel is already fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip makes no sense in terms of the country’s interests — but in terms of Netanyahu’s personal interest, it makes perfectly good sense.
Potentates of old were always willing to sacrifice thousands upon thousands of lives in pursuit of their reprehensible self-interest. In that, it would seem Benjamin Netanyahu has been a very apt student of history.
It is hardly a revelation to say that words have power. They can delight, inform, edify, inspire and destroy. Unfortunately, it is the the latter effect that we see all too frequently today. One only has to look at the various cesspools to be found on social media to see this in action, and the tragic results of depraved online bullying. No one is immune.
And what is true about the misuse of language by individuals is also true of countries. In her most recent column, Shree Paradkar points out how the Israel's insidious misuse seems designed to obscure its atrocities in Gaza.
Who are Palestinians in Gaza? The Israeli government and its supporters would have us believe they are anything but innocent civilians.
This is important. Denying the innocence of the thousands killed during Israel’s onslaught allows its leaders to justify civilian deaths or to proffer a rationalization that “they brought it on themselves,” while blaming everything on Hamas.
Conflating all Palestinians with the evil of Hamas allows for the dehumanization of all Gazans, essentially equating the citizens with terrorism.
Former Mossad chief Rami Igra told CNN's Anderson Cooper last month that “The ‘non-combatant population in the Gaza Strip’ is really a non-existent term. Because all of the Gazans voted for Hamas. And as we have seen on the 7th of October, most of the population on the Gaza Strip are Hamas.”
Cooper didn’t push back, but this is blatantly untrue. There have been no elections in Gaza since 2006, when Hamas won with 44 per cent of the vote, and in no district did it win a majority. Today, nearly half the population of Gaza is under 18; they were either not born when Hamas came into power or not eligible to cast a ballot then. It means only a fraction of today's Gazans ever voted for Hamas.
Such a tact means that Israel can justify all manner of war crimes.
It allowed for Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to refer to Palestinians and Hamas militants as “human animals.” And for Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, to double down on those comments and say the western world must stand with Israel as it fights the “bloodthirsty animals” of Hamas, who are used interchangeably with Gazans.
Accepting that premise means that we should not care what happens to Gazans, thereby justifying
attacks on targets such as hospitals and schools that are protected by humanitarian law by claiming that they are in fact “military infrastructure.” Israeli evidence of Hamas using hospitals and schools as hideouts and bases has not been independently corroborated and remains contentious. But whatever the truth, Israel and its supporters use these claims to absolve themselves of any responsibility for civilian casualties.
All who accept such premises really become complicit in the ongoing slaughter, and no clever linguistic nuances or semantics can change that fact.
George Orwell many years ago warned us about the political use of language. Sadly, it would seem that whatever lessons he tried to impart are long forgotten today.
One of the pleasures of my retired life is going out for long walks with former colleagues. Having taught at the same school, we have known each other for many years and, dare I say, we are all fairly well-read and attentive to the events that unfold in our world.
Yesterday's two-hour walk in the country covered a number of events, some frivolous, some serious. The topic of the Middle East came up, of course. We all expressed alarm at the incidents of anti-Semitism that are growing rapidly, but at the same time we also felt free to criticize the state of Israel over its killing of so many innocents in Gaza as retaliation for the Hamas attack.
So one might conclude that educated and intelligent people can hold views that entail a degree of nuance and require the capacity for empathy.
But that conclusion would be inaccurate, as made very clear by Shree Paradkar in her examination of the treatment of doctors who have spoken out about Palestinian suffering and are now understandably reluctant to go on record with The Toronto Star.
Yipeng Ge, a doctor indefinitely suspended from his University of Ottawa residency after social media posts critical of Israel, did not want to comment, saying, “Out of respect for the University of Ottawa process, I will not be making comments at this time.”
A Toronto physician who is a friend of Ge and describes him as a “outstanding physician” and “consummate professional” does not want to be identified because says he “worries about being punished for supporting Yipeng.”
Having worked with the WHO in the West Bank, Ge is well-versed in the suffering of Palestinians. But that seems to account for nothing.
An associate professor at the university wrote a blog this month calling Ge’s social media posts antisemitic. Among them he took issue with a photo of a protest poster on a pole that equated Zionism with genocide, claimed Ge was indulging in “blood libel” by sharing “conspiracy theories” about Israel bombing hospitals. Another was an image of a poster with the contested protest chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” While protesters say it is a common call for Palestinian liberation, those opposed see it as a call for genocide.
The university confirmed Ge’s suspension and said it was based on complaints of an alleged breach of conduct.
But Ge is hardly alone in his horror over what Israel is doing.
Another high-profile incident involved Ben Thomson, a nephrologist at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital, who was suspended from his job, threatened and doxed online after posting in support of Palestine.
Then there is a coalition
named Health workers Alliance for Palestine [that] released an open letter this month calling on Israel to stop bombing hospitals in Gaza.
“There are no circumstances in which health facilities, patients, and healthcare workers can be viewed as legitimate targets of military operations. Israel’s war crimes must stop immediately,” the Nov. 10 petition reads in part.
Consequences ensued.
It was signed by more than 3,000 professionals from across the country. Since its release, many the signatories have said they are facing professional repercussions. They’ve been hauled up by higher-ups, told there were complaints lodged against them and accused of making Jewish colleagues feel unsafe.
An Arab-Canadian physician in Quebec signed the letter on Nov. 10. “Less than 48 hours later, the attacks on my email began,” he says. The attacks were from colleagues he thought he was close to, who accused him of antisemitism and “blood libel” and copied in senior management of the hospital. “I thought it was not only a case of intense silencing and harassment, but also, quite frankly, character assassination.”
A senior Egyptian-Canadian physician in a GTA hospital was told by senior administrators that while they received several complaints about his signing of the letter and his tweets, they did not find any evidence of wrongdoing. He now knows he’s being watched closely.
A medical resident with a prominent university in Ontario who signed that letter said he received intimidating comments from colleagues asking why he’d written the letter. One of them told him anti-Zionism was equal to antisemitism. Another said he was “disgusted” to be his colleague. “Essentially, pro-Palestinian voices or … any advocacy for Palestinian human rights has been essentially vilified and turned into something that it’s not and it’s disheartening.”
We have long bruited our respect for freedom of speech and expression. Unfortunately, in the current environment, it would seem that those rights end as soon as they conflict with someone else's sensibilities. It is sad and perilous when one becomes frightened to speak up for human rights and against cruelty and senseless killing for fear of consequences.
I am reminded yet again of an old peasant saying I have referenced in the past: "Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie." Apparently, that is a sentiment with which increasing numbers take issue. And that cannot be a good thing.
As the war between Israel and Gaza rages on, it is almost too painful to watch the devastation that the former is inflicting on the latter. I have always been steadfast in my view that criticism of Israel, which is clearly warranted in its ongoing retaliation for the horrible Hamas attack, is not a manifestation of anti-Semitism, but rather the valid criticism of a nation-state, something we do regularly when other countries overstep their bounds.
Sadly, however, politics being what it is, most 'leaders' are loathe to engage in anything more than pro-forma declarations of Israel's right to defend itself, while inserting parenthetic sympathy for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Political courage and leadership are most often singularly lacking in the discussion.
Nonetheless, most right-thinking people are undoubtedly appalled by the rising number of anti-Semitic outrages being committed these days under the pretext of reaction to Israel's actions in Gaza. People are being attacked, children are afraid to venture out to school, places of worship are being desecrated. None of this can be justified.
Germany, which knows well the cost of anti-Semitism, offers an especially lucid and heartfelt analysis of the ugliness that is spreading; given its history, what it says matters. German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck released the following nine-minute video, which merits careful viewing and careful reflection. It makes a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of the Jewish state and anti-Semitic actions. Even if you don't have the time to watch the entire piece, try to watch some of it, as the concern, compassion, balance and historical context contained therein are well-worth your consideration.
UPDATE: Thanks to Toby for providing this link to a full transcript of Habeck's speech.
From the 1970s onwards, Israel aided the development first of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, and subsequently Hamas, created by the Brotherhood during the 1987 intifada. The aim was to undermine the authority of the secular PLO. “Bolstered by this policy”, the Times of Israel observed last week, “Hamas grew stronger”. Those who want to maintain the land of Israel solely for Jews and those who want to eliminate Jews from that land are as much in a mutual embrace as in a death struggle.
And this was reported by UPI in 2002:
...according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.
Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
The Times of Israel reports that,
[b]olstered by this policy, Hamas grew stronger and stronger until Saturday, Israel’s “Pearl Harbor,” the bloodiest day in its history — when terrorists crossed the border, slaughtered hundreds of Israelis and kidnapped an unknown number under the cover of thousands of rockets fired at towns throughout the country’s south and center.
Where all of this will end is anyone's guess; the odds of the conflict spreading are significant. The only thing I know with any certainty is that reflexively supporting Israel, no matter what it does, will only ensure that the suffering on both sides is prolonged, and the press does no one any good by self-censorship in this matter.
Consequently, the anger, resentment and hatred felt by Palestinians today will find new generations to carry on this conflict, either overtly or through repeated, smaller attacks, long into the future.
I have thus far refrained from writing anything about the atrocities taking place in The Middle East. I have nothing constructive to add to the debate. However, I can't help but make an observation and reproduce the thoughts of another writer, who I will get to in a moment.
First, a walk down memory lane: the immediate aftermath of 9/11 saw this famous declaration from then-president George Bush:
Such a proclamation, that you are either "with us ... or you are with the enemy" is clearly the product of an untutored mind, a mind that sees the world in bifurcated, absolutist terms. It is the favoured stance of both the simple-minded and the extreme radical, on both the left and right of the political spectrum. They allow for no nuance, no willingness or capacity to hold two conflicting views at the same time. God forbid that reason should enter into the calculus.
And so it is in the current war between Israel and Hamas/Gaza, the refusal to allow for the fact that the terrible attack on Israel did not happen in a vacuum, and the suffering inflicted on both sides is horrendous and worthy of condemnation.
I came upon a very thoughtful and thought-provoking article today by The Star's Shree Paradkar, one that doubtlessly will bring about a severe reaction from some. Because many readers do not subscribe to newspapers, I am taking the liberty of reproducing the entire piece, something I don't think I have ever done before in this blog.
See what you think:
I’ve been sick for a few days. Now I’m sick at heart. Sick in body and spirit. Like many in Canada, I’ve spent a sleepless night that’s reverberating with the sound of a clock a world away. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
More than a million people given 24 hours to get out, or else.
How are they planning it? What will the elderly and disabled do? Are there roads?
Will they send the minors first? Half a million of them?
Bombardments on the way.
No water.
No food.
No electricity.
The babies on incubators in hospitals? The people in the ICU?
No beeps there.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
What about the Israeli young ones who died?
That, too, is a tragedy. Of course, it is horrendous.
Hamas is bad. The Israeli government is bad. Innocent Israelis and Palestinians are being targeted and killed.
See, it’s not difficult to believe more than one thing is true at the same time.
But since the Hamas surprise attack last weekend in Israel that included mass killings and hostage taking, and Israel’s vicious retaliation including tightening its 16-year-long illegal blockade on Gaza, we have been fixated on a fake litmus test that decides whether we care for humanity or whether we support terrorism. The test question: “Do you condemn Hamas”?
Of course I condemn them — but why must I be made to say it?
Have we lost our reason? Or have we simply pulled off the mask of reasonableness?
When Hamilton NDP member Sarah Jama released a statement in solidarity with Palestinian people, the response in corners that usually see chest thumping about free speech became chilling very quickly. First there was her own party leader Marit Stiles publicly throwing her under the bus, asking for a retraction. There was Premier Doug Ford demanding she step down, falsely claiming Jama was “publicly supporting the rape and murder of innocent Jewish people ” Of course, she had done no such thing, but the howls became louder.
A Black, Muslim disabled woman was being hounded. Then the racists smelled blood and came rushing up to say, “Go back to where you came from,” and much worse.
Eventually Jama apologized.
Her sin? She hadn’t condemned the attack.
But not condemning it does not mean support of it, or of Hamas. It’s not so hard to understand the reluctance to condemn the Hamas attack on demand, horrible though it is. The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, who lost family to Israeli attacks, puts it this way: “It’s the Palestinians that are always expected to condemn themselves,” he told the BBC in a now viral video. “How many times has Israel committed war crimes live on your own camera. Do you start by asking them to condemn themselves?”
He’s right.
Palestinians are so rarely defended. More than a million people in north Gaza, half of them children under 18 who have never voted, and certainly not for Hamas? Abandoned by the world, how can they be saved? Tick-tock, tick-tock.
So now, in a cruel twist, it has fallen upon Jews — the very people whose trauma was triggered by the Hamas attack — to put aside their own grieving, their own coping and become the voice of restraint.
That’s why Jewish groups such as Independent Jewish Voices Canada are calling for a ceasefire. Or why we see Daniel Levy, president of the U.S.-Middle East project, getting so blunt on TV. When a BBC reporter said: “The Israelis would say we’re targeting Hamas,” he said, “Do you really keep a straight face when you say that? Do you think terrorist organizations embedded in populations who are denied their most basic rights are ended once and for all in a military campaign? Does that happen in history?”
Tick-tock.
A day after the Hamas attacks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Canada unequivocally condemns” them and that Canada reaffirms its support for Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with international law.”
Other Western leaders condemned the attack, with U.S. President Joe Biden calling it “an act of sheer evil.” But all pretended that this was happening in a vacuum. Nobody is asking them to justify it, but there wasn’t even an attempt to acknowledge how we got here.
The international law is now being openly broken. Forced deportation or forced transfers are defined as both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Could the international community now condemn Israel?
No. The U.S. sent weapons.
Could other people protest on behalf of Palestinians?
No. Germany, France and many European nations banned them (some rightfully when they descended into antisemitism).
Could the politicians at least acknowledge that Palestinians have been denied basic human rights?
No.
Could the politicians say: Palestinians have a right to live?
Apparently even that is too much.
While Gaza starts to get closer to extinction, all Trudeau managed were a few waffling words about unilateral military actions “not contributing to the kind of future we all want to see.”
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken asked Israel to show restraint.
Tick-tock.
History needs to know we saw this happening, we understood what it was and we did nothing to prevent it.
We need to know that to be on the right side of history requires that we grow a backbone in the present.
Real thinking requires hard work. It would appear that many of us are not up to the task.
