One of the salient features of commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is the absolute refusal by either side to acknowledge even the possibility that the other might have a point. Commentary on each side simply shouts the wrongdoing, bad intentions, “pure evil” of the other. It’s easy enough to do; there’s wrongdoing aplenty by everyone.
So, for example, here’s veteran leftist Chris Hedges on the recent crisis. He details past, present and possible future Israeli outrages against Palestinians. Consider this recent admonition of IDF troops by one Ezra Yachin:
“Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them,” Yachin said addressing Israeli troops.
“Erase them, their families, mothers and children,” he went on. “These animals can no longer live.”
“Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them,” he said. “If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him.”
Notice, he didn’t say “if you have a neighbor who’s a Palestinian terrorist, … shoot him.” No, all Arabs are fair game because, well, they’re “animals.” Notice too that merely substituting “Jew” for “Arab” instantly converts his words into everyday Hamas vitriol.
Hedges reports a long list of horrors that have been and may be visited on residents of Gaza, many of which, to his credit, he cites to Israeli sources. The aim might be to retake Gaza and shove Palestinians who survive the bombing and ground war into an unwilling and inhospitable Egypt.
Government officials have openly called for another Nakba, or “catastrophe,” the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from historic Palestine and driven into refugee camps to create the state of Israel.
That process in the West Bank is not new. Seymour Hersch recently reported (citing an Israeli governmental official) that, so far this year, over 200 Palestinian Arabs have been slain there by Israelis. Since the 1967 war, Israel has carried on a consistent campaign of removing Palestinians from their homes in order to make way for the expansion of Israeli settlements. It’s demolished houses, refused building permits and refused to allow the return to the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinians displaced by the 1967 war. Meanwhile,
The number of Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, however, has gone from zero before the June 1967 war, to between 600,000 to 750,000 spread out across at least 250 settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, all of them in violation of international law.
Again, most of that comes from Israeli sources like the newspaper Haaretz and the human rights organization HoMeked, and sources like the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It’s all quite damning and, not by accident, paints a horrifying picture of Israel and its intentions.
And yet, in article after article, podcast after podcast, Hedges never even hints at the possibility that Hamas or Palestinians generally might have done something to provoke Israeli wrath. Incredibly, the recent invasion and slaying of 1,400 Israeli non-combatants goes unmentioned. So does the most important fact about the Israeli-Arab conflict since 1947 – that Hamas, Palestinian terrorist organizations of the past and various Arab and Muslim states believe that Israel itself must be erased from the map at whatever cost in blood.
What would the situation be if Palestinians had simply accepted the 1947 partition of the British Mandate and lived peacefully in their own state side-by-side with Israel? What if Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East had refused to dedicate themselves to the entire destruction of Israel and the slaughter of Israeli Jews? What if Hamas hadn’t intentionally scuttled the Oslo Accords and the real possibility of peace along with a Palestinian state? To Hedges, it’s simply not worth mentioning that the entire raison d’etre for Hamas is the destruction of Israel and Israeli Jews.
And what about the fact that, although they pay lip service and sometimes more to the Hamas cause, not a single Arab or Muslim state in the region will allow them, or the Palestinians they claim to represent, into their countries? Israel isn’t the only country that loathes and fears them and with very good reason.
But you’d never know any of that from Hedges’ piece. No, to him, there is one Evil – Israel – and none of the bloody wrongs of Hamas deserve mention.
On the flip-side, show me a strongly pro-Israeli article or podcast that even nods toward balance. I haven’t found one, but I’ve found plenty that, mirroring Hedges’ piece, admit of only one side of the issue – Israel the victim, Palestinians the victimizers.
The Free Press on Substack is the brainchild of Bari Weiss and, since October 7th has published numerous articles on the crisis. I dare you to find one that admits that Palestinians have any sort of legitimate complaint. Show me one that questions whether the 1948-49 forced displacement of about 700,000 Palestinians into refugee camps in order to create a Jewish state might be considered just cause for outrage or even violence. Or one that recalls Zionist terrorism against Palestinians, the British or even other Jews. The 200+ Palestinians killed so far this year in the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements that have never stopped expanding at the expense of Palestinian civilians? Not a peep. Or Israel’s past targeting of health infrastructure in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon as found, by both U.N. and Israeli organizations? Nope. What about the potential humanitarian crisis – death to Palestinians of all ages and political persuasions from Israeli bombing, starvation, dehydration, and disease? Silence.
Neither side breathes a word about anything that might encourage readers to drop their blinkered activism and, in Gore Vidal’s words, “become thoughtful.”
Let me be abundantly clear. Regarding Israel and Hamas, there is no “moral equivalence.” Israel’s many wrongs do not weigh evenly in the balance with those of Hamas, Hezbollah, other pro-Palestinian terrorist organizations, or the various Arab and Muslim states in the area that have periodically made war on Israel. They’ve done so since 1947 with the expressed intention of destroying the Israeli state that was created by the United Nations. I have no doubt that, if Palestinians and others had simply accepted the partition and lived and let live, none of this would be happening. Like the current crisis, the original sin is squarely on the shoulders of those who seek Israel’s destruction. That both sides deserve blame does not mean that the blame is equal. It’s not.
Such though is the state of commentary on the Israel-Palestinian question. No one on either side manages to notice the obvious – that both sides have legitimate complaints about the other, both sides have committed atrocities, both have committed acts of terrorism. Both sides are so committed to the notion of the purely Evil Other that they sacrifice basic honesty.
But this is more than the simple refusal by ideologues to tell the full story, although it is surely that. It’s the frank opposition to any solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem. Those who say only that they are victims and their enemy victimizers announce to the world that they have no interest in an end to the madness except by the total destruction of the Evil Other. After all, to concede anything to the Evil Other is to give aid and comfort to Evil, and who does that?
The result will be never-ending war and conflict, continued suffering and death and, though none of the self-righteous commentators will admit it, it’ll have been perpetuated in part by them.
This article originally appeared at The Word of Damocles.
