Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

Cutting Through Newsletter, May 10, 2021

[Note: Since publishing this piece, violence has continued to escalate. Palestinian casualty figures have not been updated in some time, which is worrisome since Israeli attacks have continued. But rocket fore from Gaza has now caused two deaths in Israel and multiple injuries. Given some of the points I make, and whose meanings I stand by, in this piece, it seemed important to note that Israelis have also been killed and injured, which was not the case when this was published. - MP]

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

When you discuss Israel’s actions in the past five days, you are likely to be asked this question, directly or indirectly.

After weeks of escalating tensions, particularly in Jerusalem, the boiler got turned up to ten as the Israeli government went to court in response to an attempt by Palestinians who had lived in Sheikh Jarrah for generations to prevent their eviction by Jewish settlers.

Protests grew more contentious after several encounters, including when the avowed Kahanist and Knesset Member Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been welcomed into Benjamin Netanyahu’s failed governing coalition, said that Israeli police should open fire on protesters.

Matters escalated and Palestinian anger over other issues—Israel’s attempts to impede Palestinian access to Jerusalem’s Old City during Ramadan and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas cancelling Palestinian elections, likely in collaboration with Israel and with the unambiguous support of the United States—joined with the outrage over Sheikh Jarrah to lead to widespread protests.

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

From the very outset, Israel used extreme violence against Palestinian protesters, injuring hundreds. After 54 years of occupation and protests, they certainly knew that the violent response was not going to de-escalate the situation, especially not in Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities were certainly aware that using weapons like sound grenades, tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber-coated bullets inside the al-Aqsa compound intensify the already volatile situation. They knew that this kind of challenge to Jerusalem, more than any other issue, would force Hamas to respond. Jerusalem galvanizes both nationalist and religious sentiment and Hamas would be under pressure to respond, lest it look weak and, even worse, unwilling to confront Israel on this most sensitive issue.

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

After the rocket fire came from Gaza toward Jerusalem, the Israeli response was fast and furious. Indeed, the Israeli military had already been deployed along the Gaza border, in preparation for the anticipated escalation. So they were ready to bombard Gaza as they have so many times before. Despite extensive intelligence about the various sites and locations of militant and Gaza authority networks in the Strip, and despite possessing advanced weaponry capable of a very high degree of accuracy, ten of the twenty-one people reported killed in Gaza at this writing were minors, at least one of whom was under ten years of age.

The Israeli onslaught is continuing at this time, as are protests in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank as well as in some areas inside of Israel.

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

The United States has been unusually quiet about the escalating situation in Sheikh Jarrah, in the Old City of Jerusalem, and at the al-Aqsa Mosque. A tepid statement last Friday from the State Department and a few statements from interested members of Congress is really all we saw before Monday. There is still no U.S. ambassador to Israel or any sort of consul or other official in charge of dealing with the Palestinian Authority. Joe Biden’s strategy seems to be to try to ignore Israel and Palestine as much as possible.

The White House, however, finally did something on Sunday, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan pressed his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben Shabbat, to detour the Jerusalem Day march scheduled for Monday. That march takes place every year on Jerusalem Day, which was Monday, and is an annual rally of the most extreme, racist, and virulent Israeli nationalists. They wend their way through the Old City and some surrounding areas, intentionally going through as many Palestinian neighborhoods as they can get away with, chanting hateful slogans and declaring Jerusalem to be theirs, and a city only for Jews.

The Netanyahu government agreed to divert the march, under American pressure, and the marchers said they would not march at all if they couldn’t go anywhere they wanted. The Netanyahu government also agreed to bar Jewish Israelis from entering the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound. But the police and military presence remained in the area.

That was not enough to prevent escalation, but it was sufficient for Israel to demand that the source of nearly $4 billion in annual aid mind its own business. Indeed, with Hamas and Fatah trying to compete for the Palestinian public’s trust specifically on being able to defend Jerusalem, merely avoiding these extra provocations, after all that’s happened and with the al-Aqsa area still being crammed with Israeli security never stood any chance of de-escalating matters. Someone in the White House should have known that, especially considering how many of Biden’s people have years of experience with this issue, but clearly no one did.

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

The American response was all too typical. With only a fewnotableexceptions, members of Congress, including toomanyDemocrats, fell over each other to support Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unequivocally and with no context. Some noted that Israel could do more to defuse the situation, but the right to self-defense—which is, apparently, the sole province of Israel and completely off limits to Palestinians in American eyes—trumps all, no matter how culpable Israel is for the entire debacle.

Do you condemn Hamas’ firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other parts of Israel?

So, at last, YES. Hamas’ use of indiscriminate weapons is a clear violation of international law as is its apparent firing of those weapons at civilian targets. But that isn’t really the point of this question, is it?

No, the point is to remind everyone that Hamas is a designated terrorist organization, that, despite the fact that its position as the custodian of the Gaza Strip (calling what the Palestinians have in either Gaza or the West Bank a “government” is a mockery of that word) is the result of an attempted coup that United States, Israel, and Fatah cooked up to nullify the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, they are the “bad guys.”

The point of the question is to reinforce the perception that Israel is the eternal victim of the brown-skinned Arabs’ hatred and antisemitism and that everything would be peaceful if only the Palestinians would simply accept Israeli rule.

I understand why Hamas launched rockets into Israel, even sending some as far as Jerusalem. But, no, it’s not something I find acceptable, it’s an act against international law, a standard I, like many supporters of Palestinian rights, apply regularly to Israel, and must do so to all parties. The particular principle of international law that it violates—the failure to distinguish between legitimate, military targets and civilian ones—is one I believe in applying universally because I consider it a moral imperative.

I also object to the rocket fire on a practical basis. There was no hope the rockets—most of which never reached any targets, were intercepted by Israeli anti-rocket missiles, or simply misfired—were going to accomplish anything. Even if one were to adopt the morally objectionable position of indifference to potential civilian casualties, the act itself was an exercise in futility at best and one that played right into the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu and the most radical of the Israeli nationalist fanatics at worst.

So, sure, I’ll condemn the act. But I’ll only do so after making all the other points that came before this one. I’ll only do so in the context of condemning ALL the violations of international law and making it plain that Israel’s claims of self-defense in this instance, as with so many others, are contrived, artificial arguments that Israel itself created by instigating this violence and escalating it at every turn.

The question of condemning the rockets is a contrivance, intended to remove the events of these days from the realm of a universal application of law and applying it only to the powerless Palestinians. Israel places itself above international law, above criticism, and displays utter contempt toward, and lashes out at anyone who attempts to hold it accountable, even rhetorically, let alone practically, for its actions.

The question of condemning Hamas rocket fire is, lastly, an attempt to hold the Palestinians to a standard of perfection. How, we are asked, can we defend people we ourselves admit are committing a crime against international law? Yet Israel faces no such scrutiny. The powerful may act as they see fit and are to be trusted that they are acting properly, whatever the evidence. The powerless will see their entire cause invalidated by any transgression, great or small.  

It’s not just a matter of law. It’s a matter of the most basic ethics. Doing the right thing, or being held accountable for transgressions, must be a universal matter, not just one that holds one side to standards and makes excuses for another. A system of restorative justice can only thrive in an atmosphere of fairness to all. That’s even true for retributive justice, if we don’t want it to perpetuate conflict, as it so often does.

So, do you condemn Israel’s theft of land; its denial of Palestinian rights; its deliberate provocations and escalations in Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah; and its willful inviting of violence that devastates Palestinians and even harms its own citizens, whom it has a responsibility, as you so often point out, to protect?

I’ll wait.

Recent articles

Before all of this began, there was a very hopeful policy paper that emerged from a collaboration between the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and the US/Middle East Peace project. I wrote two articles that looked at different aspects of the paper. For +972 Magazine, there was “‘Equality’ is finally breaching Washington’s debate on Israel-Palestine.” Meanwhile, over at Responsible Statecraft, I published, “Washington elites embrace rights-based approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

Despite how hard it is to see anything positive in Palestine and Israel today, there was, just a few weeks ago, a promising bill that emerged from the office of Rep. Betty McCollum, The Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. I looked at the bill and explored why the pro-Israel lobby was so alarmed by it in The New Arab, in a piece titled, “Betty McCollum's bill won't pass. So what's the Israel lobby so afraid of?”

I wrote a few pieces that weren’t about Israel and Palestine as well. Critical of Joe Biden’s attitude toward refugees and asylum seekers, I published “Biden’s unacceptable decision on refugees” at ReThinking Foreign Policy.

Many who follow me on Twitter may be aware that I do not believe white people are really “grappling with race” as a community to the extent that many in the media. In fact, while I certainly think the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial was a better outcome than the alternative, I don’t think it changed a thing. I make the case at Medium, in “Whatever the Verdict, the Derek Chauvin Trial Won’t Change Things.”

Finally, my most recent piece, also at Medium, is a response to Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress. Specifically, it addresses the way he framed the U.S.-China relationship and the shortcomings of demonizing other countries. Check out “Demonizing China Is Bad Policy For Everyone,” where I also discuss a recent piece by Prof. Stephen Walt.

Recommended Reading

Israel chooses violence

By Haggai Mattar, +972 Magazine, May 10, 2021

This ‘progressive’ Israel lobby group has a racism problem

By Alex Kane, +972 Magazine, May 5, 2021

Reviving a Palestinian Power: The Diaspora and the Diplomatic Corps

by Zaha Hassan, Nadia Hijab, Inès Abdel Razek, Mona N. Younis, Al-Shabaka, May 4, 2021

The Fight Against Vaccine Apartheid Goes Global

By Yara M. Asi, The Nation, April 27, 2021

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