As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel.
We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”
Nur Masalha appears to be a well-regarded Palestinian expert in Palestinian history, very good. Ilan Pappe is a post-modernist though, there’s a little too much narrative massaging without evidence in that philosophy. In most fields this is fine, but history is a dangerous one due to its common use for propaganda purposes.
You’ll note, I’m trying very hard to avoid spreading any propaganda myself, pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. I’m very leery of the stuff, and it is very common unfortunately due to how it can be used to justify violence that people may wish to commit for any number of reasons. Opposing viewpoints should always be viewed together, with appropriate attention given to all available evidence.
This is a genocide. I wouldn’t ‘both sides’ this conflict anymore than the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Zionism is a fascist ideology. I won’t equate that to an anti-colonialist resistance.
Advocating for the humanity of Palestinians, a permanent ceasefire, and a One-State Solution with equal rights for all is the right way to approach this issue.
I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification, and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany, while very common on here, miss some very key distinctions. Primarily that Netanyahu and his right wingers have nothing even close to the rigid regimentation and control in Israeli society that the Nazis had on Germany.
Another would be that Hitler needed to manufacture his casus belli on Poland, while pushing a unifying narrative to his people based on conspiracy. Israel’s casus belli was obvious to all, faced with not just Oct 7th, but frequent wars of Jihad in their more distant past.
A third would be the thoroughness of Nazi crimes against the Jews, to the point of gassing. Closest Netanyahu has come is the current artificial famine he’s being prohibited from finishing off, so far.
Regarding
I fully agree, except on the One-State Solution. While I would appreciate that enacted in an ideal world, in our world I think Palestinians would have “equal rights” but suffer under systemic discrimination as POC and women do here in America. I also think it’s the least likely solution to actually be enacted. Thus I personally advocate for a Two-State Solution in line with the Oslo Accords, which the Israelis already demonstrated a willingness to work towards before Rabin’s assassination. While this may be less “right”, I don’t think “right” should be pursued when this impractical, where we’re dealing with an over century long blood feud driven heavily by illogical emotions.
edit: Note, I don’t dispute that it is an attempted genocide. The famine is a very clear indication of that.
Hamas only exists because of the Apartheid Occupation of Israel and the daily violence that has subjected Palestinians to for generations. Israel has always been the obstacle for peace.
De-development via the Gaza Occupation
The Israeli imposed closure on Gaza began in 1991, temporarily, becoming permanent in 1993. The barrier began around Gaza around 1972.
Page 402
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy
Blockade, including Aid
Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
After the ‘disengagement’ in 2007, this turned into a full blockade; where Israel has had control over the airspace, borders, and sea. Under the guise of ‘dual-use’ Israel has restricted food, allocating a minimum supply leading to over half of Gaza being food insecure; construction materials, medical supplies, and other basic necessities have also been restricted.
Settlements, Occupation, and Apartheid
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Peace Process and Solution
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai, an Israeli, has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video. I do genuinely think you should watch that video
I actually agree with that, except that Israel has always been the obstacle to peace. They were not when they were dismantling their illegal West Bank settlements after the Oslo Accords. Similarly with giving the Sanai Peninsula back to Egypt. If you avoided such an absolutist perspective I could fully agree with you.
I will give it a watch, thank you.
I appreciate that you genuinely care about sources and have an intellectual curiosity to engage with them.
Only thing I have to add is about the settlements and Oslo Accords. I think the Sinai disengagement can be seen in a peaceful light with Egypt, however I cannot say that extends to peace with Palestine.
Declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
This can be seen as an extension of the mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948 in respect to Settler Colonialism.
Israel may have dismantled some settlements after Oslo, but it is far eclipsed by the new settlements created after Oslo and has risen ever since.
(AJ source previously linked) (The Haaretz source talks more about Rabin and Oslo)
I would argue that Egypt agreed to the peace proposal in order to normalize relations economically and regain it’s territory, at the expense of the Palestinian people.
Excerpt from Ilan Pappe's findings about the Israel - Egypt peace settlement
I don’t argue against the ethnic cleansing being deliberate, I’m well familiar with Plan Dalet. The primary crux of my argument is that this is very much a case of two sides trying to ethnically cleanse each other, with one succeeding and the other failing. The one that failed is rightfully upset, but it should not be seen in some more-innocent-than-the-other light. Recall, this all began because I said hamas and Hezbollah are themselves Jihadist, genocidal movements. Perhaps that’s been overshadowed in the modern day by mere survival, since actual ultimate victory has become so distant, but I don’t ignore those roots.
Liberation, reconquest/Jihad, ethnic cleansing, call it whatever you like, but if it is directed against a people living on land they were born to, it’s too late. The invaders became innocents at that point, due to being different individuals after the chronological passing of time. Descendents are not guilty for the sins of their fathers or countrymen, you cannot simply lump them all together as “colonizers” and subject to destruction, that is not right. If an individual colonized nothing, only their forebears or countrymen did, that individual is not a colonizer. The saddest thing about Oct 7th was how so many of the dead were pro-Palestinian progressives, fighting for the rights and dignity of Palestinians.
Now, that isn’t to say we shouldn’t continue to fight for human rights. But to say hamas or Hezbollah are even remotely on the “right” instead of co-equal and complicit with the IDF and Netanyahu in the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian people is wrong-headed in my eyes.
edit: Consider, after Rabin’s assassination, Netanyahu, a right-wing, ex-military strongman won the following election by a single percentage point. Do you recall the environment in Israel at the time, the regular suicide bombings in Tel Aviv? That is not how you achieve peace, it’s how you achieve war.
This is not true. Zero of the resistance groups, Hamas or otherwise, have ever had the goal of eradicating all Israelis. The destruction of Israel means the end of Israel as a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate, of the Occupation, of the Apartheid, of the Genocide. It means the creation of a new State where Palestinians have equal rights to Israelis. Palestinians are not inherently primitive and antisemitic, which is the underlying sentiment baked into that idea equating the two. Zionist is an inherently Supremacist ideology and dehumanizes Palestinians in order to justify the Ethnic Cleansing and Settler Colonialism. The Book about Transfer I referenced earlier has extensive documentation that show this.
That entire argument is based on a false premise and is completely at odds with the history as I pointed out earlier. It ignores the reality of Partition, the plans for ethnic cleansing and settlements, the creation of the PLO, Hamas, and other resistance groups, and the details of the peace process including the Oslo Accords.
Then you don’t understand the difference between Colonialism and resistance to Colonialism. The Vietcong were not co-equal with the French, nor were the IRA to the British, or the ANC in South Africa.
Do you recall that Zionism is a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate and the environment that has created for Palestinians for generations? Settlements and Occupation are antithetical to peace, that has been the entire point. This has been discussed extensively by Historians like Avi Schlaim and Ilan Pappe, which I already linked. Official Israeli Declassified Documents and Official Knesset Meeting Minutes make all this very clear. None of this is hidden knowledge, multiple Israeli historians have discussed this extensively in their works.
Then explain the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians. Not just on Oct 7th, but over the entire century before. You have reams of evidence of Israeli atrocities, this is good, but you are completely silent on Arab atrocities. I assure you there were many, which I won’t link to because I am not a propagandist. You’re educated, though, you know how to find the examples. Explain the bombings during and after the negotiations over the Oslo Accords. Explain the continued fueling of the fear that Netanyahu leverages to maintain his power.
This is an attempt to whitewash the past with a new progressive interpretation, but much like how the “river to the sea” slogan has several different variations in Arabic, we should remember that a new, re-worded variation does not eliminate the historical existence of previous variations, like “min el-mayeh lil-mayeh, Falastin Arabiyeh”. This whitewashing is one of the dangers of Post-Modernist historical work, and why such historians do not deserve their credentials.
There is no inherent difference between colonialism and resistance to colonialism. There are structural differences applied by our ideologies, but functionally they are all humans of one singular species living on land. While people are actively invading, resistance can be justified, if battle has a reasonable chance of success. Once the invaders have settled, though, they are no longer invaders, they are neighbors. This was incredibly common through the European Middle Ages, the Vikings did it up and down the Eastern Atlantic, as just one singular example. Human history over the whole globe is full of these movements of people, continuing even into the modern day, though usually much more nonviolently.
This statement is historically false. It should not be taken with blanket faith, but should be critically examined. Not to excuse the furthering of illegal settlements into the modern day, but simply to point out that just because settlement happened at some point in the past does not mean violence is necessary forever into the future. Doing so will inevitably result in the extermination of the weaker group, based on historical precedent. This is not necessary, however. The Anglo-Saxons and Norse co-existed very peacefully after a time, despite one being Christian and the other Pagan, just to continue on my earlier example.
Ultimately, you should consider what sorts of actions will empower and strengthen Netanyahu’s hand, making his strategies more likely to succeed by allowing him a firmer grip on his own people, and what sorts of actions will weaken him, and make him more likely to fail. These practical considerations are what the survival of the Palestinian people hinges on. Not justice, rights or dignity. Remember too, that starvation of every last Palestinian man, woman and child does not require any foreign aid from any power for his country, and just how many genocides have succeeded throughout global history. How rare it is for a genocidal regime to actually be stopped by the international community. SE Asia, Central Africa, the Balkans, the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, the Ukrainians, our own Native Americans.
That’s what we’re up against, and your one-sided, propagandized vision of hamas is playing right into Netanyahu’s hands, as you excuse the dangers his own people experience, giving further fuel to their fear. You know what afraid people are capable of? Genocide. Instead, consider acknowledging a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, one less reliant on capitalized vocabulary words and systemic structures and more on natural human physiological and emotional reactions to certain sorts of stimulus.
Not even to speak of hamas’ oppression of their own people, an entirely separate topic altogether.