Other Ways
Since the Israeli response to the attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023, we have seen thousands of people organizing for a cease fire and for the provision of humanitarian aid. Many are calling for an end to the Occupation of Palestine. The taking of life, first by Hamas as they broke through the walls that confined them, and the subsequent bombings and siege of Gaza by Israel, have shaken a world grown callous toward death and destruction.
In the face of this carnage, people of conscience are choosing to act. Marches, teach ins and walk outs, direct actions, and demonstrations are happening daily. Across the globe people recognize the Israeli government is engaged in war crimes.
People are also struggling to make a distinction between what people want and what governments do. The actions of the Israeli State do not reflect the desires of most Israelis, any more than the actions of Hamas reflect the desires of most Palestinians. Nor do the US government’s actions reflect the longings of its people. Such distinctions are critical if we are to hold a sense of common humanity and generate the possibilities of finding ways forward beyond the interests of States.
We know that there is a fundamental injustice at the root of this pain and destruction. The dispossession of a people from their homes to provide a place for others cannot be justified. Land must be restored.
We, in the United States know full well the violence that is required to remove people from their lands, homes, and sacred places of memory. Our history is steeped in the blood of centuries of war against indigenous peoples to take their land. It is a history rooted in the enslavement of people taken by force from their communities and denied their basic dignity.
This understanding of injustice embedded in the founding of both the US and Israel enables us to think more deeply about this moment and our responsibilities as human beings. Over the last two decades activists and scholars have helped us understand that settler colonialism is not an abstraction. It is an essential form of violence that dehumanizes and destroys people. It is an ideology that justifies killing to the take of land from some for the benefit of others.
It is the understanding of this core injustice that has propelled many revolutionary thinkers and progressive activists to stand with the Palestinians.
African Americans have been in the forefront of this thinking, recognizing that Israeli policies, mirroring the apartheid practices of South Africa, are a gross violation of human rights. In 1963 Malcolm X supported the Palestinian people. He said:
The Palestinian struggle is not just a cry for justice. It's a blistering battle for the most fundamental human rights that every living soul on this planet should inherit by birthright. It's an unyielding resistance against the oppressive suffocating grip of occupation and the callous denial of the most basic human dignity. Just as the civil rights movement in the United States fought against the chains of racial discrimination, so too do the Palestinian people strive to shatter the chains of occupation and tyranny. Never forget my friends that the Palestinians, much like African Americans in the United States, have been subjected to a heart-wrenching history of suffering and torment. The birth of Israel in 1948 brought forth the mass expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral homes, and this is a historic injustice that continues to haunt the lives of Palestinians to this very day.
In 1967 both SNCC and the Black Panther Party issued statements linking the struggles of Palestinians with global struggles to end colonialism. They called for self-determination.
In 1982, in response to the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the Afro-American Committee Against Genocide, equated Zionism with fascism and charged the State of Israel with genocide.
More recently as the movement for black lives unfolded in the US, Palestinians reached out to offer support. Much of this support was based on the personal ties forged by organizations that had established connections among young people seeking justice globally.
This moment is a test of the humanity of all of us. Out of such devastation and injustice, we have the responsibility to find other ways of being. Surely, we need to develop a new sense of interdependence, of compassion, and of care for each other.