{"id":1299531,"date":"2023-10-28T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T10:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/10\/gaza-palestine-israel-war-military-solution-cease-fire-naomi-klein-omar-baddar\/"},"modified":"2023-10-31T12:58:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T12:58:06","slug":"there-is-no-military-solution-to-the-crisis-in-israel-and-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/28\/there-is-no-military-solution-to-the-crisis-in-israel-and-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"There Is No Military Solution to the Crisis in Israel and Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n  \n\n\n\n<h3>In a conversation with David Sirota, Naomi Klein and Omar Baddar speak about Israel\u2019s brutal war on Gaza, the appalling lack of support in the West for a cease-fire, and the double standard in mainstream media coverage of Israel and Palestine.<\/h3>\n<hr\/>\n\n<figure>\n  <img alt src=\"https:\/\/images.jacobinmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/27160624\/GettyImages-1738208857-900x600.jpg\"\/>\n  <figcaption>\n    A view of destruction after an Israeli attack on Nuseirat camp, Gaza Strip, on October 22, 2023. (Ashraf Amra \/ Anadolu via Getty Images)\n  <\/figcaption>   \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n  \n  <p>On Wednesday, October 18, the <em>Lever<\/em>\u2019s David Sirota hosted a live event with Canadian journalist and activist <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/author\/naomi-klein\">Naomi Klein<\/a> and Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar to discuss the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and the mounting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p>David, Naomi, and Omar spoke about the historical and political context that led to this moment, the double standard being applied by corporate media outlets in their coverage of Israel and Palestine, and recent responses from members of Congress. They also took live questions from the audience. An abridged and edited transcript can be found below.<\/p>\n\n  \n\n    \n      \n        <hr\/>\n        <h2><\/h2>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>David Sirota<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>Naomi, why don\u2019t you tell us what is happening right now and why you think it\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Naomi Klein<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>I would just say that solidarity is medicine in these times. There was a cease-fire rally, calling for a cease-fire and humanitarian assistance immediately [held by] Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, which are two Jewish-led organizations that are kind of the other Jewish lobby, really bringing a much younger, progressive perspective. It was the largest Jewish-led protest in solidarity with Palestinians in US history. There were thousands upon thousands of people in front of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>More significant than that was the civil disobedience: five hundred people went into the Capitol rotunda and were arrested \u2014 including lots of rabbis and many, many young people. It was a real show of solidarity. The message was: \u201cEvery life is precious.\u201d It was really a message of total rejection for the targeting of civilians, no matter where they live. It wasn\u2019t this double standard that you hear inside Congress of \u201cabsolute horror at the targeting of Israeli civilians (yes, I agree) but then bomb the hell out of them indiscriminately if they\u2019re Palestinians.\u201d I really do believe it was a historic day. I was honored to be there.<\/p>\n<p>It was also in support of a <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/10\/cori-bush-cease-fire-gaza-war-israel-palestinians\">cease-fire resolution that is being led by [Rep.] Cori Bush<\/a> [D-Mo.] but has sign-ons from a lot of other members of the so-called Squad. I also spent a lot of time meeting with different congresspeople trying to get more people to sign on to this cease-fire resolution, and more people did sign on. So you really did see the power of pressure. But it\u2019s still too small. And the calling for blood is very, very loud in there. It was an emotional day.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>David Sirota<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>Omar, Naomi mentioned this double standard about civilian casualties. Talk to us a little bit about what that feels like to the Palestinian-American community, to Palestinians who hear that.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Omar Baddar<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>Naomi, I think you\u2019re putting your finger on a very, very serious problem that is long-standing, even beyond this crisis we\u2019ve had, leading up to before even the Hamas attack.<\/p>\n<p>There had been 250 Palestinians killed this year, primarily in the West Bank, as a result of Israeli government actions and settler attacks. And there\u2019s hardly any mention of it in mainstream media discourse and hardly any commentary about it from Washington. And then we had this absolutely horrific attack that Hamas launched. As a result of that we see, on a loop, the depth of Israeli humanity \u2014 we have parents being interviewed at length, giving emotional testimony about who their children were and how difficult losing them is.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--left\"><q>They\u2019ve closed down every single possible peaceful political avenue for Palestinians to push for their freedom, while Israeli political rhetoric has gotten more and more viciously anti-Palestinian.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>But the sharp contrast with the utter disregard we see for Palestinian life is quite grotesque, frankly. And that continued even as Israel started launching this massive onslaught throughout the Gaza strip, when we\u2019re describing indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. We are talking about war crimes. And more than that, frankly, I think the word \u201cterrorism\u201d is the correct word that comes to mind.<\/p>\n<p>There have been many, many, many bombings of Gaza by Israel before, and when human rights organizations investigate them, the conclusion they reach is that Israel has engaged in reckless and deliberate bombings, and indiscriminate ones, of civilian areas. In some cases, even when there was this great March of Return out of Gaza in 2018, Israeli snipers were taking aim at journalists, medics, and activists who were clearly unarmed. We have this pattern of Israel behaving in a way where it shows disregard for Palestinian human life.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the dominant narrative is that when Palestinians kill civilians, it\u2019s because they\u2019re barbarian monsters. And when Israel does it, \u201cOh, it really has to be an accident because Israel is way too nice and civilized to ever do something like that intentionally.\u201d That conveys a level of racism and dehumanization of Palestinians that I think is very, very deeply aggravating for a lot of people watching, and, more crucially than just the emotional impact of it, it stops us from pursuing better policies and moving things in a better direction if we believe that there\u2019s a fundamental disparity in the humanity of people on either side.<\/p>\n<p>Because ultimately, beyond just this crisis, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to find a military solution for anything. Israel has believed for many decades that if only they pummeled the Palestinians hard enough, and if only they squeezed them and confined them strictly enough, that they\u2019re going to resolve this issue, and then Israel gets to live happily ever after. The lesson has been, repeatedly, that this approach does not work. All it does is produce the kind of despair on the Palestinian side that then leads to an explosion like the one we just saw.<\/p>\n<p>What we really need is a shift in Israel\u2019s approach. That can only be achieved by American pressure to accept that the only true way out of this is one in which Palestinians and Israelis get to live in safety, freedom, and security. That entails ending Israel\u2019s siege \u2014 an occupation and apartheid system that has made Palestinian life really unlivable.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>David Sirota<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>Let\u2019s set aside Israel\u2019s occupation. But, for argument\u2019s sake, a terrorist attack happens, and Israel argues that the terrorists who committed that attack are deliberately basing their attacks from within civilian facilities, from within hospitals, schools, civilian neighborhoods. And so then the question comes up: What is a humane and adequate security response?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Naomi Klein<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>I don\u2019t think there is a military response that is going to in any way get at the root of what led to those attacks. I think Israel is creating more \u201cterrorists\u201d every single day.<\/p>\n<p>I was in Gaza in 2008. I met lots of little kids in the rubble. I met kids whose bodies had been burned with white phosphorus. Those are young men today. I saw the same thing in Iraq after the invasion. I believe Palestinians have a right \u2014 that people under occupation have a right \u2014 to armed resistance, up to the targeting of civilians, because that violates the Geneva Conventions, which are the legacy of World War II.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--right\"><q>I don\u2019t think there is a military response that is going to in any way get at the root of what led to those attacks.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>We have an international legal architecture that is one of the legacies of the Holocaust and the other horrors of World War II. And right now Israeli officials are going on television and just shrugging it off. You can\u2019t shrug off international law in the morning and then invoke it in the afternoon when it\u2019s Israel, who is violating international law.<\/p>\n<p>I have been talking all day about Israel\u2019s war crimes. But the thing about war crimes is that you have to apply the standards, no matter who violates it. It\u2019s not like, \u201cMy team\u2019s okay. And your team is not.\u201d It just doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a really perilous time. But everyone now looks back on their response to the September 11 attacks with a lot of regret, right? Because, ultimately, those were criminal acts that could have been responded to as if they were criminal and not through these massive wars that are basically unending, even if our governments no longer admit it.<\/p>\n<p>I think we\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/10\/israel-9-11-us-disaster-netanyahu-bush-hamas-attacks\">repeating the same mistakes all over again<\/a>. I think also, like 9\/11, there were people in the George W. Bush administration who had a whole plan for redrawing the map of the Middle East, and they saw their moment. And we have to remember that and think about people like Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a very extreme far-right government, who has been openly espousing genocidal ideas and talking about how they don\u2019t want to deal with Gaza anymore. Basically they\u2019ve been calling for ethnic cleansing. They want to take the entire West Bank, and they are seeing their moment here.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>David Sirota<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>I bet there are folks here who remember, during the 2004 presidential campaign, that George W. Bush and the Republicans just lambasted John Kerry for saying that it would probably have been a better idea to have dealt with 9\/11 as a law enforcement matter. I remember thinking, has everyone gone insane? I\u2019m not a huge John Kerry fan, but what John Kerry was saying, when it comes to a response, makes perfect sense. And I\u2019ve wondered, in this last week, when did the response to 9\/11 become a guidebook rather than a cautionary tale?<\/p>\n<p>Omar, if we stipulate, just for argument\u2019s sake, that some terrorists are basing their operations among civilians, what is a humane response from the Israeli security forces to something like that?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Omar Baddar<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>It\u2019s part of the challenge with what effectively amounts to a suicide attack, when you send militants across the border with the expectation that they\u2019re going to be there to fight and die. When it\u2019s over, you\u2019ve killed the people who perpetrated the attack. You now have a question of the extent to which you want to go deeper into Hamas\u2019s broader responsibility as an organization.<\/p>\n<p>That does absolutely become a law enforcement issue, first and foremost. It\u2019s a question of what it means to pursue a sensible judicial process by which you hold Hamas members accountable \u2014 whether you\u2019re trying to get people arrested, who you\u2019re appealing to, who gets to do it? All of this is a nonstarter for the Israeli government, because they\u2019re so offended at the prospect of [how] an attack like this [would give] Hamas any sense of power. The goal for them, first and foremost, is not to pursue justice by any stretch of the imagination \u2014 it is to punish them for daring to do something like this. And that involves decimating them in every way possible.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--center\"><q>The goal for them, first and foremost, is not to pursue justice by any stretch of the imagination \u2014 it is to punish them for daring to do something like this.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>That is the approach, and it\u2019s obviously not one that\u2019s going to work out. The only way you\u2019re going to eliminate Hamas\u2019s existence is by committing unspeakable atrocities that literally flatten huge parts of Gaza. You\u2019re talking about genocidal practice in order to be able to achieve something like that.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lack of nuance in the way that we talk about this that, to me, is very, very important. Militants who use guerrilla warfare and guerrilla tactics because they don\u2019t have airplanes and tanks are, by necessity, going to be embedded in civilian areas. They\u2019re not just going to all gather in one empty part of Gaza and say, \u201cWe\u2019re all here, we\u2019re staying away from civilians,\u201d because then one Israeli missile takes them out. There is an imbalance of power that makes it impossible.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>David Sirota<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>Let\u2019s talk about the US response to this. Naomi, in your opening remarks, you mentioned this resolution that some folks in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are pushing. This resolution struck me as not only entirely sensible but kind of like the most minimal statement that any nonsociopath should be able to agree with. It\u2019s just a statement of \u201cdon\u2019t kill, and limit and reduce and eliminate the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians.\u201d And yet, as best as I can tell, it only has fifty-five or sixty cosponsors.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, separately, there was a letter that circulated that I was appalled at from both Republicans and Democrats. It had this line in there that says, \u201cWe\u2019re already beginning to see calls in some circles for de-escalation. Premature de-escalation would be a victory for the terrorists and allow them to continue to threaten Israeli civilians with future attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How do we explain why there\u2019s relatively little support for a resolution that just says, \u201cLet\u2019s stop killing civilians\u201d \u2014 and yet there is also support on Capitol Hill for a resolution that says any calls for de-escalation effectively make you a terrorist? How do we explain that?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Naomi Klein<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>I heard from multiple congresspeople today that \u201ccease-fire\u201d is now seen as toxic. It\u2019s seen as not \u201cstanding with Israel.\u201d And I saw a lot of signs in the hallways saying, \u201cStand with Israel,\u201d which is code for blank check. It\u2019s the same thing that the United States did after 9\/11. Are you with us or with the terrorists? It\u2019s a straight-up loyalty test.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s outrageous, because these US congresspeople should not be standing with Israel if that means that there are no strings attached to any of the weapons, any of the aid. They should be standing with international law. And so the question is, how did this happen so quickly?<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pq pq--left\"><q>I think that what the Israeli government did very deftly, and very quickly, was take a war crime and systematically and from out of the gate describe it as a hate crime.<\/q><\/aside>\n<p>I think that what the Israeli government did very deftly, and very quickly, was take a war crime and systematically and from out of the gate describe it as a hate crime, as the single deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the pogroms.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not minimizing. I think war crimes are a really big deal. I think massacres are a big deal. But that is not how it\u2019s been described. It has been taken out of its geopolitical context and put within a narrative of a primordial Jewish trauma and antisemitism, which inherently can\u2019t be reasoned with, within that narrative.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the only way that I can explain why people are so afraid of not standing with Israel. And that\u2019s smart communications.<\/p>\n<p>I would just add one other thing that I think is a factor here, which is that the occupied territories are a laboratory for what Israel calls \u201csecurity without peace.\u201d That\u2019s what all the walls and the checkpoints and the siege are all about. It\u2019s basically, \u201cWe don\u2019t need peace when we can contain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Hamas breaks through the Arab checkpoint, breaks through the wall, and inflicts this amount of civilian loss of life, the entire model is failing. But it\u2019s not just Israel\u2019s model. Every Western power plus India wants security without peace. What do you think is happening on our borders? We live in an incredibly unequal world that is becoming more militarized, more surveilled \u2014 and a lot of that weaponry, we\u2019re buying from Israel.<\/p>\n<p>I think that also partially explains the speed with which every Western power has come down to say we will protect the Iron Dome. We\u2019re worried about our own iron domes. And it\u2019s helpful to broaden it beyond Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n          <dl>\n            \n              <dt>Omar Baddar<\/dt>\n            \n            <dd><p>I think the second aspect of it is the extent to which Republicans use Israel as a wedge issue against Democrats constantly. Democrats keep falling over each other to try to say, \u201cNo, no, no, we\u2019re not anti-Israel.\u201d Both parties, by and large, are overwhelmingly supportive of Israel to the point of saying \u201cunconditional support, do whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You have a situation in which Israeli politics has moved further and further to the right. It has become more and more extreme. You would think that that would naturally break the dynamic in the United States, but it has not.<\/p>\n<p>If the UN tries to vote against [Israel], we\u2019re going to step in and veto it every single time. If Palestinians go to the International Criminal Court to try to get some accountability, we\u2019re going to place enormous pressure on the criminal court to not bring charges against Israeli war crimes. They\u2019ve closed down every single possible peaceful political avenue for Palestinians to push for their freedom, pushing us toward a situation of violence, while Israeli political rhetoric has gotten more and more right-wing, viciously anti-Palestinian \u2014 and yet the Democrats continue to be pushed further and further to the right as well.<\/p>\n<p>Then, when an incident like this happens, it\u2019s almost no surprise that we live in a political climate in which everybody is going to fall in line. Even in the face of literally genocidal rhetoric and the beginning of genocidal actions that we\u2019re currently seeing in Gaza, we\u2019re stuck.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s honestly infuriating that we don\u2019t have an awakening of the American political consciousness at a moment like this to say, \u201cSlow down, we get this is a big deal. This is really horrible. But cutting off food and fuel and water from a million children is not okay.\u201d That ought to be a fundamental sense that our political establishment seems to be lacking.<\/p>\n<p>I think it is an extremely disturbing climate, and I\u2019m so grateful for groups like If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace who have given a voice to the voiceless and have stepped up. These are progressive American Jews who are saying, \u201cDo not weaponize our pain in order to commit crimes against other people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s the message that I hope creates some kind of awakening within the American political establishment to start understanding that the current trajectory is a deeply ugly, disturbing one that is going to lead us to utter disaster.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n          <\/dl>\n        \n      \n    \n\n   \n  <hr\/>\n  <p>You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the<i>\u00a0Lever<\/i>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.levernews.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/10\/gaza-palestine-israel-war-military-solution-cease-fire-naomi-klein-omar-baddar\/\">Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, October 18, the Lever\u2019s David Sirota hosted a live event with Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein and Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar to discuss the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and the mounting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. David, Naomi, and Omar spoke about the historical and political context that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1305651,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299531\/revisions\/1305651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}