Content warning: This article contains mentions of violence and rape.
Editors Note: This piece is a column published by Michigan in Color which follows a separate editorial process than our News or Opinion content. Michigan in Color allows contributors and columnists to write anonymously to protect themselves from racial and other identity based harassment.
***
A Rebellion in Gaza
On Saturday, Palestinians in Gaza launched a surprise attack on the colonizing force of Israel, one of the largest-ever Palestinian liberation operations in modern history. They invaded colonial settlements, bulldozed territorial walls and captured Israeli soldiers. Although any violence is unconscionable, the rebellion was unavoidable. It comes after Palestinians have been imprisoned in a cage, where they’ve been trapped and subjected to violence, polluted water, inequitable health care, forced births at checkpoints and, as the Human Rights Watch conclusively states, crimes against humanity.
This must be interpreted as a response of a people pushed beyond endurance in an open-air prison. For when you confine more than two million individuals within a strict, 140-square-mile area, subjecting them to an unrelenting siege devoid of resolution with drones and rockets persistently buzzing above day and night, imposing continuous surveillance and harassment and granting them minimal control over their daily existence — inevitably, those deprived of their rights will rise in rebellion. In response, Israel has imposed a complete blockade on food, water and electricity to the Gaza area, telling you everything you should know about who the oppressors are.
This fight is not about Jews and Arabs; this is about Israeli apartheid and occupied Palestinians. IfNotNow, an American Jewish organization, pointed out that this attack from Gaza is not “unprovoked.” The Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist organization, states that “the Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago.” If that’s not enough, thirty-one Harvard student organizations blame Israel for the recent Hamas attack, claiming that these attacks didn’t happen in a “vacuum.”
***
SAFE’s Apartheid Wall
Just three days before this liberation act, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) gathered on the Diag to protest the ongoing apartheid of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Students displayed an 8-foot tall mock apartheid wall that stretched 36 feet across the Diag, serving as a testament to the 36-foot tall and 2.3 million-foot long barrier that exists in present-day Palestine. SAFE members and allies also held informative signs detailing the ethnic cleansing carried out in the Occupied Territories and Palestine as a whole by the state of Israel. From calculated ecological crimes to health care restrictions and killings of children, the signs were an educational form of protest that informed passersby of the tragedies taking place in Palestine:
“96% of water from Gaza’s sole aquifer is unfit to drink — UNICEF.”
“1 in 4 pregnant women in Palestine are considered high-risk and are regularly denied specialized care — UNICEF.”
“The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability — Human Rights Watch.”
***
Historical Context
The barrier, also known as the apartheid wall, separates Palestinian communities in the West Bank from Israel. Construction of the apartheid wall began in the summer of 2002 amidst the Second Intifada, which was triggered by Palestinian frustration with the “solutions” put forth in the Camp David Summit that disguised Israeli occupation as a fair legal resolution. The Israeli government claimed that the wall was a defensive measure to prevent violence against its citizens. In reality, these sentiments were rooted in pure propaganda and the construction imposed a new sinister reality for Palestinians. The leading human rights organization in Israel, B’Tselem, claimed that a key factor in constructing the wall was to lay the “groundwork for the de facto annexation of most of the settlements and much land for future [Israeli] expansion,” which included fertile territory and water sources. Amnesty International has condemned the construction of the wall and demanded that the Israeli government return the property that it has unlawfully seized to the Palestinian people. Most pertinently, the United Nations has explicitly stated that “the wall is a tool for ethnic cleansing” and the Human Rights Watch reported that the wall is a weapon that rationalizes “Israeli forces routinely (firing) on those who enter or approach the ‘buffer zone.’ ”
***
SAFE’s Stories of Murdered Palestinians
The purpose of SAFE’s demonstration was to raise awareness about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through the tragic symbol of the apartheid wall (although the wall is only one manifestation of Israel’s oppression and settler-colonialist project in Palestine and the Occupied Territories). Upon initiation, speakers took to the microphone to tell the devastating stories of Palestinians whose lives have been disrupted by the wall. Here are three stories that were relayed at the protest:
On the morning of September 22, 2015, 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamun was stopped at a checkpoint in the old city of Hebron. After she passed through the checkpoint’s metal detector, Israeli soldiers ordered her to open her purse and lift her face veil. Hadeel, who only spoke Arabic, could not understand the orders given to her in Hebrew, and the Israeli soldiers refused to let witnesses translate for her. When she couldn’t understand their orders to move back, the soldiers shot the warning shots at the ground and then shot her in the leg. They shot her 9 more times, 10 times total, as she lay on the ground … her body was dragged out of view of the cameras and left on the ground at the checkpoint. The Israeli soldiers refused to let Palestinian medics through the checkpoint and Hadeel went untreated until it was convenient for the Israeli medics to “attend” to her. Hadeel died that afternoon.
In April of 2016, 24-year-old Maram Abu Ismail — at the time five months pregnant and a mother of two — approached the Qalandia military checkpoint near Ramallah with her 16-year-old brother Ibrahim Taha. Ibrahim and Maram were confused about the crossing procedure and they were immediately apprehended by the Israeli occupation forces manning the checkpoint. They shot Ibrahim seven times and Maram was shot 15 times. The Palestinian Red Crescent was not permitted to enter the checkpoint to treat them. Maram, her unborn child and Ibrahim were all murdered.
During the seventh month of her pregnancy, 22-year-old Nahil Abou Reda began to bleed intensely. Nahil and her husband left for the nearest hospital in Nablus, but Israeli soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint and asked them to produce documents from the Israeli Liaison Office before they would be allowed to pass. They weren’t permitted to pass despite the severity of the situation. They were redirected to another checkpoint for further meaningless investigation. Finally, Nahil’s husband called for an ambulance, but the Israeli soldiers would not allow it to pass through. Nahil delivered her baby at the checkpoint, in sight of the ambulance that had come to help but could not reach her. After seven months of pregnancy, Nahil woke up to find that her baby had died at an Israeli checkpoint.
These stories depict the violence that Palestinians are subjected to on a daily basis — and these are but a few stories of what happens in Palestine and the Occupied Territories. Israel is an occupation that murders Palestinian children, rapes Palestinian women, tramples Palestinian graves, demolishes Palestinian homes, outlaws Palestinian human rights organizations and, worst of all, denies its crimes. And yet, whenever Palestinian activists protest, they are re-subjected to Israeli hegemony; it’s never the case that the Palestinian flag can be peacefully flown by itself — the Israeli flag will always be within the vicinity, articulating its dominance and reconfiguring discourse.
***
The Counterprotest
And that’s exactly what happened at the protest. A group of counterprotesters waving the Israeli flag was also present on the Diag, verbally harassing and filming the demonstrators. Counterprotesters yelled at Jewish Graduate Employees’ Organization members and called them “traitors.” They also spat on the silent protestors holding signs and directed racist remarks at Arab and Muslim students at the event, claiming that the demonstrators looked “less Arab” than them.
Counterprotestors also claimed that the demonstration was antisemitic especially amid the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. In reality, the conflation of Judaism as a religion and the settler-colonial project has been a convenient narrative that moralizes the ongoing apartheid and exploits a holy religion for a political agenda. SAFE’s demonstration was not a rally against Jewish people, but instead a rally to echo the cries of Palestinians subjected to the violent architecture of apartheid and the inhumanity of Israeli occupation forces in their homeland.
It must be noted that there is bravery in coming out to a protest like this: Proponents of the Israeli regime have been known to harass and corner individuals who stand with Palestine. An appalling example of this is Canary Mission, a website that doxxes Palestinian activists and shares their personal information. Many protestors wore masks to hide their faces and protect their identities from verbal abuse online. I chose to be an anonymous contributor for the same reason.
Even in the United States, in moments of resistance, the colonialist oppressor manages the oppressed, deterring activists from speaking out against Israel’s brutality. Still, there was a vast and diverse showout at the demonstration. Individuals from different backgrounds, ethnicities, races, religions and sexual orientations united under the slogan “Free, free Palestine!” because this is a movement for collective liberation — the same cannot, of course, be stated for the counterprotestors. The increasing support for Palestine does come at a very unfortunate cost. As the tragedies intensify, it becomes harder for Israel to mask its violence. On the international stage, the Palestinian is pushed to become the perfect victim.
***
The Perfect Victim
The “perfect victim” is a damaging concept that does not address the Palestinian struggle until it’s completely helpless and tragic. This leaves no room for international recognition of the struggle unless the oppressed silently accepts all that’s done to them, polarizing their dehumanization to a point that hinders the dominant narrative’s capability to supersede. Acts of resistance from the victim interrupt this narrative and allow for the re-articulation of the dominant discourse.
On the day of the resistance attack that recently took place, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the country was at “war” and that the “enemy” would pay “an unprecedented price” — a frightening pronouncement to hear from this colonial government that’s recently resorted to a totalitarian, aggressively far-right leadership. One can only imagine the bleak reality that such a direct statement entails, given that the occupation has one of the strongest armies in the world. More horrifyingly, Ariel Kallner, an Israeli Knesset member, called for a second “Nakba” in response to these events. (For context, “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic, and the first Nakba of 1948 resulted in the deaths of over 15,000 Palestinians.)
Whatever the future may bring, there’s a moral onus on all of us to stand with the Palestinian resistance that’s fighting against the occupational force. The international response, as of late, has been quite morally disappointing, with the United States pledging $3 billion to Israel, Germany mulling aid to Palestinians and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing that the world must stand in solidarity with the oppressor that is Israel.
Moreover, when there is resistance and the “perfect victim” narrative is interrupted, major Israeli and Western news outlets subsequently misconstrue the narrative — a pattern all too familiar whenever there is an oppressed people and a favorable oppressor. An instance of such fabrication is the Times of Israel, Fox News and the New York Times presenting this recent act of resistance as an act of terrorism rather than an attempt at decolonization. To quote the famous human rights activist, Malcolm X: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
***
Moving Forward
Due to the University of Michigan’s incompetency and moral bankruptcy, Palestinian students are forced to attend an institution that actively supports their aggressor. Biased, one-sided courses and Zionist student organizations normalize a traumatizing reality for many of these students. Are Palestinian students supposed to simply book an appointment with the bureaucratic mess that is Counseling and Psychological Services? Any serious support for Palestinian students must begin with the acknowledgment of the undeniable fact that Israel is an apartheid state. Unfortunately, from funding trips to Israel to avoiding a boycott of Israeli institutions amidst rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, this University has seriously failed its Palestinian students. Even University President Santa Ono believes that there are some “very strong meaningful relationships” that this institution has in Israel. (He also visited Israel in May of 2014.)
Given the decentralized nature of the University, however, pockets of progress are inevitable thanks to the tremendous work of Palestinian activists on campus. The establishment of the Edward Said Lounge as a space for SAFE and the Arab Student Association, for instance, is a testament to this. Said was a prominent Palestinian academic, poet, literary critic and musician. More relevantly, he was a leading activist for the Palestinian cause and his representation on campus is a small, but productive step toward Palestinian advocacy.
***
Final Thoughts
The demonstration organized by SAFE stands as a poignant testament to the ongoing atrocities faced by the Palestinian people. The mock apartheid wall, embodying the oppressive Israeli policies, served as a powerful visual tool to educate and raise awareness about the grim reality of life in Palestine. The personal stories shared during the protest vividly depicted the harrowing experiences of individuals who have suffered under the occupation, emphasizing the urgency of addressing the humanitarian crisis.
In light of Israel’s recent declaration of war, the fight for Palestinian advocacy continues, and we must continue to educate fellow students and urge our institution to reassess its staunch allyship with Israel. As SAFE continues to do the great work that it has been doing, solidarity for the Palestinian cause on this campus will only increase, and the normalization of growing resistance is the first step towards critical institutional change. Activist organizations on campus, such as the Black Student Union, the Young Democratic Socialists for America and the Graduate Employees’ Organization, along with cultural organizations, such as the Arab Student Association and the United Asian American Organization, have re-posted SAFE’s statement on the recent events, which essentially endorses the Palestinians’ right to resist an apartheid regime.
In the words of Edward Said: “No matter the sustained and unbroken hostility of the Israeli establishment to anything that Palestine represents, the sheer fact of our existence has foiled, where it has not defeated, the Israeli effort to be rid of us completely.”
This contributor has asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.