Freedom Fighters and Terrorists: Ukraine, Palestine, and Double Standards
Ukraine's courageous popular resistance to Russian occupation has been rightly lauded by Western media and political elites. Palestinian resistance to decades of Israeli occupation? Um, not so much.
Hey Everyone,
I hope all the moms out there had a great Mother’s Day. If you haven’t heard it, this is the album to play for the holiday:
It’s been a minute since the newsletter came out and, come to think of it, since we’ve had a podcast release. Tony has been busy with work, and I’ve been busy getting COVID, so you’ll excuse the delays. We’ll be up and running soon.
In case you missed it, our last episode included some good stuff on what seems to be turning into the perennial issue of American border cruelty….ahem, I mean border control.
So much going on these past few weeks, though. The Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and god knows what else—the Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, as just one cheerful example, has refused to rule out banning contraceptives once Roe is overturned. Finland wants to join NATO and America’s militarists are overjoyed (!!), heralding “The Return of Pax Americana?” in the influential magazine Foreign Affairs. In other words, running guns, getting more involved, and thereby escalating the conflict is a way to…hmmm…let me coin a phrase: Make America Great Again!
But, you know what? Polls say the number one thing Americans care about right now is inflation. Well, not to worry. The issue has been all cleared up by Fox News:
If you thought letting the host of Celebrity Apprentice pick three Supreme Court justices was bad, just wait a few years and DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore will be chairing the Federal Reserve.
Ok, glad you’re here…now, dig in.
Freedom Fighters and Terrorists:
Ukraine, Palestine, and Double Standards
In 2002, there was a pitched battle at the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank. 2002, you will recall, was the 2nd Intifada (uprising, or literally “shaking off”) and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) surrounded and raided Jenin to try and quell the rebellion. They were met with gunfire and lost 24 soldiers. They responded with a massacre sprinkled with war crimes. Jenin has been surrounded by militarized checkpoints ever since and was the site for the killing of the renowned Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen, this past Wednesday.
Since 2002, the IDF has killed thousands of civilians. It has also killed over 50 reporters and injured 144. Israeli snipers have effectively executed reporters. In response to Abu Akleh’s death, Israeli IDF spokesman Ran Kochav said, “filming and working for a media outlet amidst armed Palestinians. They’re armed with cameras, if you’ll permit me to say so.” This, if you can believe it, is the IDF doing damage control. I guess the really nasty stuff is saved for the parliament and ministries.
It is encouraging that the NY Times has reported on this. It is discouraging how they are reporting it.
NY Times for the win on ambiguous cause of death headline.
It is even more discouraging that it gives credence to the Israeli version of events that Abu Akleh was near the gunfight. Numerous eyewitnesses have said she was not even in Jenin and far off from the actual shooting. Nevertheless, as Jenin is surrounded by checkpoints, she was in Israeli sniper range. A few shots rang out near her, and she was killed and a colleague injured. The Israeli government just released a video that disproves their early blame on Palestinian gunmen.
Journalist Shireen Abu Akhel.
It is hard to directly compare her to an American news personality, but she was a household name in the Arabic speaking world. A journalist for 25 years with international credibility and a specialization on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this would be sort of like if Christiane Amanpour or Richard Engel were killed by Israeli snipers.
So, where is the outcry? If she was American-American, you know, white American, then there would be some serious problems. However, as a Palestinian-American, the Western press accounts of her death have already started with their renewed love for the passive voice. “Killed by gunfire,” is a regular refrain. Oh really? Who pulled the trigger? Nobody? Just autonomous bullets flying around and finding their mark by dumb luck?
This is also the same approach with police killings, by the way. A literal NY Times headline: “Officer Whose Bullet Killed 14-year old Girl Wanted to ‘Change’ the Police.” It’s not all bullets, you see. It’s just a few rotten bullets that spoil the bunch. Indict that bullet!!
Ukraine’s journalists recently received the Pulitzer prize for their bravery. The announcement reads, “Despite bombardment, abductions, occupation, and even deaths in their ranks, they have persisted in their effort to provide an accurate picture of a terrible reality, doing honor to Ukraine and to journalists around the world." Bombardment, abductions, occupation, and even deaths, you say? And they’ve held out and done their job for more than 80 days? Wow. I don’t mean to be snide here, but really? The Palestinian press has been dealing with all that for…what is it now?..55 YEARS of occupation since the 1967 war!!
This goes blissfully unnoticed by the vast majority of the Western press. There is a good reason for that. As Rashid Khalidi has discussed in his latest book and on the pod, the Israeli state has a very sophisticated propaganda arm, hasbara, that has, among other things, made the word “Palestinian” tantamount to the word “terrorist.” Indeed, the words “Arabs,” “Muslims,” and “Palestinians” all have deliberately been endowed with the stench of terrorism, or at least a whiff of it. So, when the current Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he was misquoted saying, “I've killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there's no problem with that," and that he actually said “I’ve killed lots of terrorists in my life,” he was really saying the same thing for the many in Israel and the world over who have steadily imbibed hasbara.
So, what makes a terrorist? Perspective, that’s what. The old saying “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” is exactly right. What that means is the word “terrorist” is really just a political label to delegitimize certain parties use of violence. The word has no content. It is simply a narrative form, or, better, a form upon which to build a particular narrative—one of political illegitimacy and moral turpitude.
But what about the deliberate killing of civilians? Isn’t that a concrete definition of terrorism? 9/11? Hello??? Ok, but if that’s the case, every major military in the world knows that when it goes to war it will kill civilians. Sometimes they will try not to, and sometimes they will do so deliberately. In either case, the militaries consciously engage in war-making knowing full well that they will be killing civilians. In the modern era, to make war is to kill civilians. The salve to this brute fact is to term this deliberate killing of civilians something else—collateral damage.
But what about the lack of standard uniforms, the scary facial coverings, the use of children in fighting, and all the international randos who join up because they’re violent people itching for a fight? You know, the global jihadis?? Ok, but if that’s what defines terrorism, what do we call this?
Can you imagine the BBC admiringly reporting, “Egyptian Grandfather travels to Iraq to fight Americans”? Neither can I. The reason these people are not “terrorists” is obvious: they are considered Western allies. So what if a random guy in Scotland drops everything (except his gun), gets on a plane, and traipses off to kill Russians? He’s badass, not a terrorist. What about these women who just joined a militia and are issuing death threats? And the kids learning to shoot? Patriots!!
The elephant in the room is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are Muslim. The Islamophobia explains 90% of the double standard. The other 10%? The pure stupidity of the short-term thinking of our elites. Witness our near-President Hilary Clinton.
Insurgency is great, says Hilary. So long as it’s against the Russians, and, you know, unintended consequences—i.e. funding Bin Laden and the Taliban—be damned! Wow. If only she had won the presidency. Everything would have turned out fine.
-Amit
Thanks for reading! Until next time…