Israel and Palestine: Two equal sides?

Graffiti on the Israeli separation wall, Bethlehem, West Bank

A pet peeve of mine is when people say I should spend more time in Israel, to hear the 'other side of the story.' "So you've lived with Palestinians in the West Bank," the conversation usually goes. "Don't you think you should spend some time in Israel too, to hear their point of view?"

This kind of well-meaning suggestion is frustrating and is a misrepresentation of true nature of the conflict on many critical levels. Most importantly, it is based on the false assumption that the situation in Israel-Palestine is a conflict between two equal sides; the assumption that for every Palestinian opinion, there is an equally valid Israeli opinion. Two peoples, locked in battle, unable to agree on even the smallest of matters. They're both as bad as each other. Why can't they just get along, right?

Not exactly. The Israel-Palestine conflict is not about two rival siblings who perpetually disagree; it is about a powerful, US-backed colonial state which is militarily occupying a stateless and powerless people, the Palestinians. Israel has the upper hand in every arena of life. Each Israeli decision is backed unequivocally by the United States, each of Israel's crimes go unpunished in the international forum. When Mahmoud Abbas rightly or wrongly applied for Palestinian statehood at the UN, it was vetoed instantly by the US. Israel and Palestine: one is a state, the other is not. Two equal sides?

The rule of law in the West Bank is another example of the vast inequality between Palestinians and Israelis. Whilst Palestinians are ruled by Israeli military law, Israeli settlers in the same area fall under Israeli civil law. If a Palestinian boy throws a stone, he is arrested by soldiers and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. If an Israeli settler shoots a Palestinian dead in a field, the police will do little more than shrug. Palestinians in Area C are almost always denied building permits, and their homes are subsequently demolished, sometimes repeatedly, by the Israeli military. Israeli settlers in the same area continue to expand; illegal under international law, unchallenged by the international community. 

As I write, I'm sitting in the middle of one of the West Bank's many refugee camps. Were Israelis displaced en masse from their homes in 1948? No. From where I'm sitting I can see the 8-metre high separation wall. Are Israelis prevented from travelling freely to their livelihoods and their families? No. To get to Jerusalem from here, one must pass through a military checkpoint. Do Israelis daily face soldiers with guns, demanding to see their identification, subjecting them to ritual humiliation on the daily commute? No.  

This is not an unresolved battle between two people groups; I reject the notion that Palestinian patriotism and Israeli patriotism are both equally valid. The 'conflict' is the systematic oppression of a people subjected to an ongoing military occupation; a colonial project started by Western powers in the 20th Century, not an age-old dispute between two equally legitimate warring factions. Show me an Israeli who has been tortured in Israeli jail, show me a nonviolent protest in Israel which has been dispersed with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. Show me an Israeli who lives under a foreign, colonial occupation and is systematically deprived of his human rights. The suffering of the 'two sides' is incomparable. 

"So you're an anti-Semite," the conversation may continue. "Don't you know about the suffering of the Jews? What about the Holocaust?" Let me clarify. I understand that the Jews have been subjected to some of the worst atrocities committed by man against man. Humanity must never forget the immense pain the Jews have suffered. But forgive me if I am unable to connect the dots: Why should the Palestinians be continually displaced from their homeland to pay for the crimes commited by western Europe in the Second World War? Is the solution to mass suffering really to transfer the suffering onto someone else?

I am reminded of the words of South African writer Farid Esack in an open letter to the Palestinian people, published in the Electronic Intifada: 

'I am astonished at how ordinarily decent people whose hearts are otherwise “in the right place” beat about the bush when it comes to Israel and the dispossession and suffering of the Palestinians. And now I wonder about the nature of “decency.” Do “objectivity,” “moderation,” and seeing “both sides” not have limits? Is moderation in matters of clear injustice really a virtue? Do both parties deserve an “equal hearing” in a situation of domestic violence — wherein a woman is beaten up by a male who was abused by his father some time ago — because he, too, is a “victim?"'

If I talk to a prisoner who has been tortured in prison, do I then need to talk to their interrogator too, to 'hear his side of the story'? If I attempt to understand and support a victim of crime, do I then need to attempt to understand the criminal, too? It is my responsibility, not only as a Christian, but merely as a human being, to stand firmly on the side of the oppressed and strive for their justice, not to have a cup of tea and a chit-chat with the oppressor.

Ethan Heitner: Freedom Funnies 2012