[Peace-discuss] Re: [Discuss] Speaker last night

[Antonia Darder]

I am moved by David's email this morning.  I'm struck by the manner in which
we are socialized to defend the patriarchal State, just as we women are
socialized to defend men upon whom we feel dependent on....men we have been
taught to protect...men for whom we have been taught to rationalize and
justify horrendous behavior toward us, in the name of simultaneously being
protected and "loved" by them. For many of us, to question men (or the
State) has resulted in similar consequences---we can be rendered victims to
their physical, social, and economic power...alienated, demonized,
humiliated, isolated and marginalized within the main of political life for
opposing their injustice and inequality. Hence, it takes great courage to
stand as did Bekah Wolf last night and "speak truth to power."

But more to David's point, Students in the U.S. are taught to see Israel as
a "friendly" nation.  After all, Israel is a "democracy" in the middle east
and it's people are perceived as "white" in the midst of projected Middle
Eastern "extremists and barbarism." There is no question that U.S. harbors
and protects the Israeli State as our watchman in the Middle East. Hence,
Western-flavored barbaric atrocities against Palestinians are defended in
the name of conserving democratic life. When Palestinians respond in-kind to
protect their homeland against their aggressors, they are demonized and
further brutalized. Edward Said's notion of orientalism still works for me
here, in understanding the narrow rationality (or irrationality) at work in
the manner in which folks in the U.S. perceive the Israeli/Palestinian
question.

>From my vantage point, the problem will not end until there is a willingness
to recognize that the playing field is not level and that the State of
Israel is an aggressor, supported and financed by the U.S., in this
conflict. This is not a situation of psychological correction, as "if we can
all just get along" then there will be peace. This a grave political
economic matter with long historical arms, as David clearly noted. The
narrow rationality of the mainstream U.S. perspective reduces the
conversation to such a limited understanding, leaving little real room for
engaging the complexity that arises when a Jewish woman speaks against the
atrocities being perpetrated by the State of Israel, with the backing of the
U.S., upon Palestinians. What we must contend with are the consequences of
particular State policies and practices and the underlying political
economic forces that simply will not permit this conflict to resolve. This
to say, that it is in concert with U.S. political economic interests in the
Middle East that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict persist.  And all the talk
in the world will not change this, unless a major shift in the global
political economic climate is brought into play.  Unfortunately, I don't see
this happening anytime soon.

Again, David, I appreciate you voicing your distress openly here.  So often
I have been the person sitting in such an audience having to do everything I
can to contain my rage---which as you can imagine also gets well fired up
for me given the disguised racism that also undergirds typical defenses of
the Israeli State---a matter that cannot be forgotten in these debates.

In solidarity,
Antonia


On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 7:15 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Last night a young woman named Bekah Wolf, a Jewish-American married to a
> Palestinian and living in a village of 18,000 on the West Bank in occupied
> Palestine, spoke to about 50 students on campus, sponsored by Students for
> Justice in Palestine.
>
> She described the daily harassment of villagers, especially children, by
> Israeli soldiers who patrol the town. I won't go into detail, because that's
> not my point for writing this. She said that she's been to many funerals
> that result from this harassment.
>
> We all have issues, not the same issues, that get to the heart of anger and
> rage, and more power (I guess) to those who always keep their cool, which
> doesn't include me. But when I hear Jewish students dispassionately
> inventing reasons why maybe the Israelis are justified in their behavior,
> that's what gets me. Yes, at a different emotional level than Kiwane's
> death, I admit it, for whatever personal reasons, and having to do with my
> own race and background. Obviously, the social injustice is just as
> egregious in both cases, and the anger is as justified.
>
> I wish I had said to these Jewish women: Do you make excuses for a rapist?
> Do you try to think up reasons why he rapes in self-defense? What we've all
> learned not to tolerate or excuse for one second, we will rationalize under
> different circumstances, when the state, our state, does it to those other
> people, for economic rather than "hateful" or "patholological" reasons.
>
> A lot of people who would never rationalize rape or lynching or gay-bashing
> support will dispassionately rationalize the policies that result in war and
> occupation. Feminists (or anyone else) don't have to explain the whole
> history of gender relations in order to oppose rape, but this woman has to
> explain the history of Israel/Palestine in order to oppose Israeli war
> crimes, as if these students are serious about understanding this.
>
> It's always convenient to say that there are two sides to every story, and
> it keeps the "mediators" busy. I have my doubts.
>
> DG
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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