[Israel has only itself to blame for the the public outrage
against its apartheid reality and the horrific war on Gaza. ]
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ISRAEL DESERVES EVERY BIT OF THE GLOBAL PUBLIC CRITICISM IT IS
RECEIVING  
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Rami G Khouri
December 2, 2023
Aljazeera
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_ Israel has only itself to blame for the the public outrage against
its apartheid reality and the horrific war on Gaza. _

Protesters rally during a pro-Palestinian demonstration asking for a
ceasefire in Gaza at Union Station in Washington, DC, on November 17,
2023, Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

 

The ongoing explosion in public activism in the United States
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and the world for a ceasefire in Gaza and equal rights for Israelis
and Palestinians is a battleground as important as the military
face-off over Gaza in this century-old conflict.

It reveals the eroding efficacy of traditional pro-Israel propaganda
in the face of more visible and explicitly apartheid policies by
Israel and widespread, technically proficient mobilisations by
pro-Palestine and pro-justice movements. It also signals how people
across the globe recognise the Palestinians’ suffering
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and their battle for national rights as among the last anti-colonial
struggles in the world.

Signs of this trend were visible even before the October 7 Hamas
attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and
about 240 taken captive. But the unprecedented and brutal Israeli
counterrampage against civilians and all institutions of life in Gaza
that followed — killing 15,000 people
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and displacing almost 80 percent of the population — has clarified
Israeli policies and their long colonial vintage and turned global
sentiment against Israel’s aggressions.

That public pressure in turn forced even backers of the war in the
West to reluctantly push for a week’s truce and negotiated exchanges
of detainees by Israel and Hamas before the fighting resumed on
Friday.

Perhaps the most compelling of the political developments that are
now in flux and will shape the world’s view of the war and
the configuration of the region has been the steady stream of
students and young professionals in the United States and beyond
standing up for equal rights for both Palestinians and Israelis.
They have done this through global mass actions like demonstrations,
legal suits, strikes, media campaigns, and public expressions of
support by athletes, artists and others in society.

Not surprisingly, this has sparked countercampaigns by pro-Israel
groups in the US and globally to shut down the voices of pro-Palestine
activists and to criminalise elements of Palestinian identity itself
— like displaying the Palestinian flag
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or wearing the keffiyeh headdress
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Many public discussions and meetings
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on the issue have been barred, and people who express any kind of
sympathy for Palestine – even if in old social media posts – have
been dismissed from their jobs. The ultimate cruelty was Israel
banning public shows of joy by families and communities for young
Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails during the truce — a
ban which, unsurprisingly, most Palestinians ignored.

Many reasons explain why public sentiment in the US and globally has
been shifting away from a traditional, heavily pro-Israel stance to a
more even-handed position that seeks to end Israel’s occupation and
military savagery against Palestinians and demand accountability and
redress for the past century of Zionist settler-colonial excesses in
all of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Sea
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include notably Palestinian ethnic cleansing and forced exile,
refugeehood, occupation, statelessness and fragmented nationhood.

Rising public support for Palestinian rights reflects Israel’s
harsh, often criminal policies, which are now visible for the whole
world to see every day – including the brutality in Gaza that
jurists and scholars increasingly evaluate in the context of genocide.

Partnerships stitched together by Palestinian activists with
progressive groups across the world have also amplified the calls for
justice.

This expanded rapidly after the Black Lives Matter movement heightened
people’s awareness and focus on social justice demands that persist
among subjugated and colonised people in many countries. People across
the world have made the connection between history, Zionism, Israel,
the Palestinians and the consequences of how the US and United Kingdom
totally and enthusiastically support Israel’s actions. Most of the
world that suffered and remembers the pain and ignominy of Western
colonialism instinctively recognised the Palestinians’ ongoing
resistance to Israel as the world’s last anti-colonial struggle and
seek to support it in any way they can.

Young people and university students lead this new wave of activism
for social justice because on their cell phones and computer screens
they see the damage being done to people’s lives everywhere by 19th
century-type colonial policies, whether against African Americans in
Missouri, Palestinians in Gaza or Jenin
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or ethnic minorities in other countries.

When credible reports by international groups like Amnesty
International or Human Rights Watch describe Israel’s policies to
control Palestinians as apartheid, the world’s conscience – led by
its youth and students – kicks into action to rid us of this
scourge. Equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians is their goal, as
happened in South Africa after decades of nonviolent and
occasional military struggle.

Not surprisingly, this global wave of activism for Palestine has
elicited some wild accusations that the protests – especially in US
universities — are motivated by anti-Semitism or support for Hamas.
This reflects more than anything else the desperation of Zionist and
pro-Israel groups who recognise and worry that their traditional
propaganda in the West is flailing.

Other arguments are being made about why the global wave of action for
universal social justice and ending settler-colonial occupations is
not sincere. Some say that activists unfairly pick on Israel but
ignore other governments that treat people harshly. Others argue that
Israel treats its Palestinian citizens well because a few of them are
in parliament or that Israel is a good place because it respects LGBTQ
rights.

Diversionary propaganda like this will mount, but it will fail as it
has been failing in recent years – because the pain, cruelty and
criminality of settler-colonial apartheid grab the attention and drive
the activism of all decent human beings everywhere who want to work
for a better world.

Israel does have many impressive qualities in science, education,
agriculture and other fields, but they are drowned out by its
soul-grinding settler-colonial apartheid reality we see on television
daily.

So we march in the streets for social justice and liberty for all as
good people have always done to fix their world’s weaknesses and
right its wrongs.

_THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT AL JAZEERA’S EDITORIAL STANCE._

Rami G Khouri
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Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a
journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the
Middle East
Rami G Khouri is a Distinguished Fellow at the American University of
Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience
covering the Middle East.
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* Ceasefire Demonstrations; Rights for Palestinians;
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