I texted the friend: "Support the people of Palestine how?"
His reply: "By trying to spread awareness of what is actually going on in Gaza. You obviously know how biased our media is on this issue."
My response (via text) was: "I disagree on some level. Dissemination of what's going on in Gaza isn't the issue, though the combination of an Israeli media blockade and Hamas propaganda makes it hard. The real issue is the completely unsophisticated conversation we have here about the nature and strategy of the conflict and our role in it."
I'd like to expound on what I meant by that.
President's Bush's first public comments on the conflict contained the following statement:
"The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is deemed by Washington to be a terrorist group.
"Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis," Bush said. "Israel's obviously decided to protect herself and her people."
I don't want to quibble with the factual accuracy of Bush's statement, I'd only like to illustrate the degree to which it is part of an unending pattern, particularly the laying of sole blame at the feet of Hamas. There have been literally hundreds of separate incidents of violence between Israel and Palestine, and more than a few full-fledged conflicts, and our government (and in too many cases our media) have taken a nearly identical view of each one.
Statements like these require our focus for two reasons. We are not bystanders in this conflict. We supply Israel with billions in annual military aid, including recently purchased munitions currently being employed in this conflict. Secondly, these statements are concrete and binding policy guidelines. Official public statements like these don't always (or nearly always) equate to follow-through policies. We talk about carbon reduction and detail how "clean coal" is compatible with that goal. We talk about how important it is for Georgia to join NATO and stand up to Russian aggression in former Soviet states with no real intention of following through on either front. Harry Reid tells us that a Blago appointee will never be allowed to serve in the Senate.
But, in referencing this conflict we continually make the most dichotomous and simplistic statements imaginable, and then enact policy as though they were unequivocally true. Put simply, the statement, "The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas" is a bad basis for policy over the short term, and exponentially worse as time goes on, as it allows us to intellectually disengage from a conflict over which we should have a large degree of agency.
I think the mistake many on the far left (and more increasingly in emerging Progressive circles) make is in trying to be some sort of a counterbalance to this destabilizing rhetoric by pointing out the asymmetric nature of the conflict -- such as the completely disproportionate casualty numbers and overall level of destruction. They try to attack the validity of Bush's first sentence, when in fact it's the nature of the conversation itself that's crippling us. It's worth noting that substituting the word "Israel" for "Hamas", probably leads us to an even less true, even more stupid and destabilizing policy perspective. What we need to do is find a way to expand the conversation. It's the only way we'll ever find the political and rhetorical space to maneuver outside the tiny, impotent box we've barricaded ourselves in.
Posts
2 comments:
I agree to a large extent with what you're saying. However, I still think it's important to refute the disinformation that most of our major media spread. With out doing so you are left with a large population of misinformed people that just accept our policies as a truism.
The confines of our discussion seem to be dictated by the policies that we have in place, and carry out, rather than what our policies should be.
For instance, I don't often see much talk about why a two-state solution hasn't been agreed upon. Well, again if you look at the facts you'll see that the international community supports this minus a few, which happen to always be Israel, US and a few others. This has been the case since 1976. Now, there is never any serious discussion (within the mainstream media) as to why the US consistently rejects this resolution.
So I do agree that there is definitely a lack of real discussion of the "nature and strategy of the conflict and our role in it". But it's important to realize that this is inherent with all of our foreign policy.
Wes:
First, thanks for the comment.
Using the term "disinformation" seems a little reflexive to me. Examples?
And, as for "accepting our policies as a truism", I disagree. There is a large (and growing) amount of domestic public opinion that shares your sentiments, a minority perhaps, but a very sizable one. You may think the media does a piss poor job of reporting on Israel, but I promise you it's MUCH more balanced almost every day. Don't you remember coverage of war in Lebanon? You can argue it wasn't balanced enough, but it was hardly some pro-Israel propaganda machine. There's a good deal of media and public debate, it just that for some reason that doesn't seem to transcend our official policy.
I'm in total agreement on your second paragraph.
Your third paragraph strikes me as fantastically simplistic and at least a little inaccurate. What 'facts' are you talking about? In what regard have we consistently 'rejected' this solution? And to the degree that we have rejected it, when has Palestine embraced it? You don't even mention the terms of any proposed division, which is integral to understanding the issue. Check out the Camp David Summit under Clinton. Also, look at Israeli news outlets. There's a much larger diversity of opinion there than here, and support for exactly the kind division you're talking about tends to ebb and flow with the political winds.
I can point to things that Israel has done that have arguably moved the two sides closer to the very kind of resolution you're discussing (removal of settlements, disengaging from Gaza, rerouting parts of the partition). You could scoff at these actions and call them proof of nothing, and you may be right, but I honestly can't remember a similar level of engagement from Hamas ever.
I'm getting very far afield here, as I'm nothing close to an expert in historical description of the conflict nor on policy prescription as we move forward.
Anybody else what to chime in?
Post a Comment