Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 7
by Bassem Eid
I’m a proud Palestinian who grew up in the Shu’fat refugee camp in Jerusalem. I live in East Jerusalem with my family, and want nothing more in this world than to see my children inherit a just and peaceful world. That’s why seeing violent protestors purporting to speak in my name chanting on campuses or burning the American flag in protests across America over the last year made me very, very angry.
The fools who chant the slogan “from the river to the sea,” a slogan which we Palestinians understand is a call for denying the right to exist of the world’s only Jewish state, aren’t just channeling the antisemitism of Hamas and Fatah, the two leading Palestinian political parties and movements. They’re also ignoring a much more basic fact: If you ask any of my Palestinian neighbors if they’d rather live under the corrupt Palestinian Authority or murderous Hamas or under Israeli sovereignty, an overwhelming majority of us would choose Israel.
The Palestinian Authority significantly curbs freedom of speech and association, arrests and tortures political opponents, and fosters a culture of violence and disregard for human and civil rights. Under the Palestinian Authority, a shocking 59% of married women and girls are victims of domestic violence and abuse, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Same-sex relationships are outlawed and met with brutal repression. None of those things is true in Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this year told the World Economic Forum that he vehemently opposes all violence against civilians. But his administration pays stipends to Palestinians whose family members are wounded, imprisoned or killed while carrying out violence against Israeli Jews, under a program known as the “Martyrs’ Fund.”
Too many self-proclaimed boosters of Palestine in the U.S. and Europe fail to hold Palestinians to the same standard as everybody else. Why shouldn’t Palestinians be expected to support democratic, nonviolent politicians and policies aimed at a peaceful and prosperous future alongside our Israeli neighbors? Instead, activists who think they’re helping us turn a blind eye to the violence of extremists who offer us nothing more than bloodshed and destruction.
It’s impossible to overstate how detrimental and demoralizing it is for Palestinian civilians when American and European activists and politicians rally in support of Palestinian militant groups. It was Hamas that instigated the heinous and deadly attacks of last Oct. 7, and Hamas knew very well that their action would trigger retaliation by Israel that has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians.
Not that you’d know this if you consulted many of the American college students or faculty protesting on our behalf, or some U.S. politicians and political pundits. U.S. universities and advocacy groups that profess to be passionate about human rights should be denouncing Hamas, the terrorist group that oppresses us Palestinians and has perpetrated rapes, murders and kidnappings en masse.
Instead, earlier this year at many of the finest universities in the U.S., student protesters disrupted classes and commencements, intimidated peers and, at the University of Michigan, some even distributed a leaflet calling for “death to America.” Some groups who are encouraging the protests are anything but peace-minded; American Muslims for Palestine, the sponsor of Students for Justice in Palestine, is accused of funding Hamas and other terrorist organizations, according to years-long investigations by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Demonstrators from New York City to the streets of Washington, D.C., have fallen for Hamas’ false narrative of themselves as liberators and have waved the terrorist group’s flags, held up placards of their murderous leaders and parroted their violent, hate-filled slogans. It pains me that many in the U.S. and Europe who claim to advocate for Palestinians are cheering for murderers who have hijacked our cause.
It doesn’t help us to vandalize a replica of the Liberty Bell; to silence an Israeli speaker on campus; to beat up people carrying American flags on campus; or to block the road to a cancer hospital to protest Israeli technology. These actions make the Palestinian cause synonymous with violence and disruption and take attention away from us Palestinians and Israelis who are trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
I would like nothing more than to see a two-state solution giving us Palestinians a state side by side with Israel, but Hamas is making this vision impossible.
It’s not too late for a sweeping change. The twin traumas of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli response in Gaza should send Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table, with each side realizing that the stakes have never been higher – and that the alternatives to peace have never been more grim. For us to have a chance to live in what will one day, inshallah, become a free and independent Palestine, we need to resist the murderers and bullies who do not care about us or speak for us.
If you want to truly support Palestinians, reject terrorists and help us elevate new leaders who will do the hard work toward real and sustainable peace.
Author is a Palestinian human rights activist based in East Jerusalem.
