Palestine Is Not Complicated

MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images

One of the most common reasons people cite for not weighing in on Israel’s war on the Palestinians is that “it’s complicated”. Even framing it as I just did as a “war on Palestinians” is seen as an example of hopelessly biased oversimplification. But as is often the case, two seemingly contradictory things are true simultaneously. The history and present of Palestine is both terribly complicated and extremely simple.

If you’ve read my previous posts you know that this time last year I knew almost nothing about the history of Palestine or the nature of the conflict. You also know that I have devoted hundreds of hours in the past year educating myself through books, recorded lectures, interviews, documentary films, etc. While always cognizant of how much I don’t know, I can say with some confidence that I know quite a lot now.

The thing is, I learned the fundamentals in the first few days.

1. Israel is a state that was established out of a political ideology called Zionism (which is not synonymous with Judaism) and built through the forcible displacement of many of the indigenous Palestinians in the Nakba of 1948.

2. Since 1967 it has occupied various territories (West Bank, Gaza, etc) and has maintained apartheid policies¹ in some regions, military control in others.

3. Every Israeli government since 1948 has envisioned a “greater Israel” that entails controlling all the land “from the river to the sea” with as few Palestinians living there as possible.

4. Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Like I said I heard all these things in the first days of paying attention to the topic. What I didn’t know at the time is that all of this is so well-documented as to be uncontroversial. It is only complicated by having to understand it in the context of a constant, powerful torrent of disinformation coming from Israel and internalized and propagated as truth by the governments of the US and its other allies, and by the mainstream media and entertainment complex.

Every state in the world engages in some degree of “public relations” (what Israel calls ‘hasbara’) but Israel really takes it to the next level. This 130-page Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus is just one example of the lengths Israel’s supporters go to propagate a perception of Israel grounded in a positive mythology about its past and present behaviors. The so-called “Birthright” tours offer all-expenses paid trips to Israel (complete with indoctrination tours) for young people in the west, and the Israeli government will often invite US politicians for extravagant “educational” tours.

The US, for its part, maintains a “special relationship” with Israel that involves (almost always unconditional) military assistance. More than half of the total amount of money we give other countries for their militaries goes to this tiny country in the Middle East. We also provide political cover for them in the United Nations and by our politicians routinely repeating Israeli talking points in the guise of honest reporting, and using anti-BDS laws, censure, and accusations of antisemitism to chill any form of speech that is critical of Israel’s policies.

In addition to all of the above there is a powerful “Israel lobby” (just like there is a powerful “gun lobby”, “fossil fuel lobby”, etc.) with organizations like AIPAC that have invested tens of millions of dollars propping up candidates who support Israel and undermining candidates who take a less subservient position to their policy demands.

Another way Israel’s supporters propagate hasbara is through a practice called ‘brigading’. This isn’t unique to them, many groups use brigading on social media. The basic idea of brigading is a group of people with shared beliefs, values, or interests coordinating responses to social media posts. So for example one might be one of hundred members of a Whatsapp group for Israel supporters, who, once alerted to the existence of an Instagram they find offensive, all give it thumbs-down or spam it with negative comments. This is very common across many interest groups.

Coordinated editing of the publicly-maintained, free encyclopedia Wikipedia is another way interest groups attempt to control public understanding, and where Israel supporters have fought for years to make hasbara the standard narrative. There are very few hard and fast rules on Wikipedia, mostly editorial guidelines. So this practice isn’t disallowed. Hence there has long been a battle between editors who apparently promote the Israeli point of view in Wikipedia articles about the region and the conflict, and others who ostensibly promote a Palestinian point of view.

I help manage Tech For Palestine, a community of people who have decided to volunteer their time to build and support projects that further the cause of Palestinian freedom and self-determination. To that end many of the projects developed in our community are what is called “counter-hasbara”. The online space where we all meet and discuss these efforts is a public Discord server that literally anyone can join.

Until a few days ago one of the channels on the server was for people who are (or want to become) Wikipedia editors, so they can make sure Wikipedia provides a fair and balanced record of the history and reporting of current events in Palestine and Israel.

We closed the channel because an article in Jewish Insider portrayed it as something nefarious. That article was followed by a series of posts (on a blog dedicated to the claim that Wikipedia as a whole is anti-Israel²) in which an hysterical commentator claims without evidence that these editors are pro-Hamas³, antisemitic, and all the other usual smears. The blogger also tried their best to connect the names of posters in the Discord with the names of editors on Wikipedia⁴. Still, we decided to close the channel to prevent anyone being doxxed and further harassed. As I understand it there are plenty of other places where people can coordinate such efforts.

Another aspect I will likely go into in more depth in another post is the so-called “peace process” that has been smoke and mirrors supported by Israel, the US, and many others to prop up the myth of a “two-state solution” that was never truly in the cards for the region. For more about this I recommend the excellent Brokers of Deceit: How the US has undermined peace in the Middle East, by Rashid Khalidi.

All of this is just to say that while the whole conflict can be summed up in a sentence⁵, the details are naturally complicated and there are a lot of loud voices in the political and cultural sphere that work tirelessly to muddy the waters. In other words the how and why of everything that has happened in the past hundred years and before are of course complicated, but the reality we see live-streamed out of Gaza and covered extensively by the United Nations and human rights orgs is clear as day.

1. See Amnesty International, United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem for detailed analyses on the issue of apartheid in Israel.

2. In the same way people accuse Americans who critique America of being anti-American, accusations of being anti-Israel or antisemitic are extraordinarily common responses to any critical statements about the history or behavior of the state of Israel.

3. Hamas is the elected government in Gaza, hence any word of support for the Palestinian people in Gaza is often disingenuously characterized as support for Hamas. Because Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel and the US and its allies, this is just a way for Israel apologists to accuse people of being terrorist sympathizers.

4. Most were the same, so well done Sherlock.

5. Zionism is a settler-colonialist project that has displaced and oppressed the Palestinian people for decades, manifesting apartheid conditions and genocide, with the full and virtually unconditional support of the United States