As I write these words, I am sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room, following with growing panic the reports and rumors of horrible events taking place in the Israeli towns near Gaza which are under attack. I see people, some of them my friends, calling on social media to attack Gaza more fiercely than ever before. Some Israelis are saying that now is the time to eradicate Gaza entirely — essentially calling for genocide. Through all the explosions, the dread and the bloodshed, speaking about peaceful solutions seems like madness to them.
Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.
If I came in to your house and started claiming rooms, and kept saying I’ll stop if you agree that we split the house, I have a feeling you wouldn’t want to agree or say it’s a generous deal.
That’s a terrible analogy, which for all kinds of reasons doesn’t fit the fact set of how Israel came to be. But let’s pretend for a moment that it isn’t.
Let’s say the British stole my grandparents’ house from them, and control the deed to the house, and that my parents lived in it as tenants, subject to the whims of the British, and now, I have inherited the lease on the house.
You are a refugee who escaped genocide, and you negotiated with Britain for a new home.
Britain gives you a deed to half the house, and tells me that I have to move my stuff to the other side of the house to make room for you.
Britain also tells me that it will give me ownership of my half of the house. I’ll no longer be leasing it from them.
I think this is a pretty shitty deal, because, hey, Britain never had a right to take the house in the first place. So I tell Britain to go fuck themselves, and I make a plan that when you move in, I will MURDER YOU AND YOUR FAMILY. My neighbors all agree that this is a great plan.
You move into my house, and see that I haven’t moved my stuff. You tell me you’re going to take my stuff and own it, and I can stay on that half of the house and pay you rent.
I say “fuck you”, and you beat the shit out of me, and throw me into my half of the house which, by the way, I still don’t have a deed for.
Now I’m super pissed, so I wait for your must sacred holiday, and while you are deep in worship, I gather all my neighbors and try to invade your side of the house and murder you.
To EVERYONE’S surprise, you kick all our asses. You fight so well you take my side of the house, and pieces of each of my neighbors’ houses!
You tell my neighbors you just want to live in peace, and you’re willing to give back the part of the house you occupy in exchange for peace. They agree.
You make the same offer to me.
I tell you to go fuck yourself.
My brother who lives with me, kills one of your kids. You kill my brother in retaliation, and in the process kill one of my kids.
I spend the next decade trying to murder you and get you out of my house, but for every but if damage I do to you, you revisit it on me tenfold.
You are never, ever, ever going to leave my house. I can’t make you. No one can make you.
You come to me and say, hey, I’m still willing to give you the deed to your side of the house. We can both move in from this. We each have many children left. We can make a situation where they prosper together.
I tell you I’ll only make peace with you if I can move back in to your side of the house, with all my family, and some of my neighbors, and until we outnumber you and your family, and then we can vote on who has the deed to your side of the house.
You tell me that’s never going to happen, because you know if you agree to that, I will take ownership whole house back, and kick you out and probably also murder you.
You, unsurprisingly, don’t like this idea, do you say no.
I declare a second antifada and kill another one of your kids.
You build a giant fence separating my side if the house from yours.
You control the front door, so the only packages you let into my side contain food, medicine, and basic necessities.
Over the years I watch you get richer and more comfortable. My family suffers in poverty.
Any time you discuss offering peace, I tell you I either get the whole house or I’ll keep trying to kill you.
You’re getting better at defending yourself as the years go by. You are thriving.
My children have no future to speak of. If I loved them more than I hate you, I’d just accept the deed to half the house and see if we can work together and live side by side in prosperity.
But I don’t. I fucking hate you so fucking much. So I teach my kids to hate you, and I strap bombs to them and send them to try to hurt you.
… And that’s pretty much where we are today.
It does fit because the Brits gave me the house down the street years ago when they owned the street and I’ve not stopped taking other houses.
There’s no point talking about what happened to the original house.
You’re angry at what I’m doing now to you and your family. Taking your house because I believe have all the power and right to do so and you have no power or right to stop me.
You have every right to be angry and strike back in self defence against such oppression.
Its not for people who have no fear of ever experiencing this oppression to judge you or your actions.
Also you believe indigenous people need a deed to the land for them to not have it stolen from them. Cringe take. Would you say that Americans were justified in their actions towards the native Americans because they had no official ownership of their land in the eyes of Europe.