by Amira Hass
As a Jewish leftist born in Israel, I feel a profound sense of grief and defeat.
Wars are an extension of policies, and this current war is of a piece with Israel’s yearslong policy to thwart any national Palestinian project toward freedom and independence. Yet there is no denying that this war of destruction was triggered by Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
This attack — against Israeli soldiers and military installations, against civilians in their homes and at a dance party in nature — shattered Israel’s hubris and exposed its structural weakness as a military power. What is this weakness? It is its inability and refusal to comprehend that domination over the Palestinian people, while denying their history as an indigenous nation, their rights as a people and their freedom, is not sustainable in perpetuity. The impenetrable confidence, the arrogant certainty that it is possible to live a good and happy life while also controlling, oppressing, and imprisoning more than two million Gazans — and profiting from that oppression and exploitation — was blown up on Oct. 7 when many hundreds of Hamas militants and an unknown number of Palestinian civilians tore down the walls of the largest prison on earth, if just for a few hours. In the annals of national liberation struggles, this could certainly be seen as an achievement.
Still, my sense of defeat is strong and persistent, and it is threefold. For decades, Palestinians and left-wing activists in Israel, myself included, have warned Israelis and the states supporting Israel that ongoing oppression and ruthless domination will lead to a dreadful explosion, harmful to all, to bloodshed and intolerable suffering. But the appeal of material privileges and benefits that Israel offered Jews (both Israeli citizens and citizens of other states) who moved to the occupied Palestinian territory proved stronger. Those have included affordable villas, subsidies and tax exemptions, better education and health care, and land for agriculture and other business ventures that could be had for free or for only a symbolic price. Add to this the fact that the occupied territory has become a huge laboratory for Israel’s weapons industry and state-of-the-art surveillance technology, two of the Israeli economy’s most profitable exports. The careers and incomes of people from all walks of life are closely tied to these occupation-related industries and to the bureaucratic machinery needed for the maintenance of a repressive hostile rule imposed upon more than five million Palestinians.
More here: https://hammerandhope.org/article/amira-hass-palestine-gaza
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