VII

If it is wrong for Hamas to kill civilians, then it must also be wrong for Israel to do so, particularly since Israel is—we are told—a State, whereas Hamas is not. But many leaders accept that Israel can murder multiples of the numbers of its own dead, brown lives being so cheap. This, clearly, is to have taken a side, which happens to the side of settlers, of (by and large) white people, the side of economic power.

Meanwhile we read that German police arrest protestors in case they say something antisemitic, acting out some displaced punishment upon themselves as Germans, directed outwards towards others, brown others (or—if white—white people unaccountably defending brown others). Now it is true that a bomber might find herself arrested before planting her bomb; it is acceptable, that is, that some crimes can be prevented in advance, and the party charged with planning the commission of a crime. But something about this justification for closing down protest seems back-to-front. On grounds of free speech, one might expect a person to be allowed to speak before being silenced, particularly when they are demonstrating against genocide. But not when the charge is antisemitism.

One intriguing aspect of the current moment is this collusion of the police forces of many countries with Israeli interests. Now Macdara obviously does not believe in the secret cabal of traditional antisemitic tropes, so what explains the actions of these police forces? Well firstly, there is a very open set of activists on Israel’s behalf, who undoubtedly seek to influence the policy of states, corporate actors, international bodies. But the police on the ground are not getting calls from these actors. Macdara does not even believe that the police leadership have explicitly ordered the harassment of people wearing or holding Palestinian flags. Instead what we see here is a kind of pure operation of Power. The dullard police know that Israel is more powerful than Palestine. They know too that white lives matter more than brown. So they pick on demonstrators; after all, they became police in order to enact Power, to visit Power upon others, even if it is not their own Power as such, but rather Power working its way through them. That is fine: the pleasure then is in being used. It is probably redundant to argue that there is something of fascism here.  

VIII

To the question of why Israel is treated differently to other countries, why there is an organised BDS campaign against Israel and not, for example, Saudi Arabia, we could point to its status as a recent and ongoing settler colonial state: the last—one hopes—adventure of European or Euro-American colonialism. But there is another powerful reason: its supporters. The present writer feels that there is literally nothing that Israel can do that would cause its supporters to break with it. Apartheid, genocide, lies; not only the murder and kidnapping of children but the breaking open of their bodies to steal their organs, a grotesque act that appears to refer to perhaps the oldest antisemitic slur, the blood libel, as if the Israeli authorities are taunting the world, ready to engage in an ever more hysterical denunciation of global antisemitism.  

Israel cannot drop one of its nuclear bombs on Palestine, since Israel itself sits on Palestine. It is possible that the use of nuclear weaponry by this shadow state, this anti-state, against Iran, for example, would precipitate some criticism amongst its allies. Macdara doubts it. So we have a situation where the ugliest regime in the world visits every injustice against the people whose bodies and land the settlers stand on. And yet the very basis of the corporate media’s coverage is, first of all, that there is a State called Israel; secondly, that this State has all the rights of other states to self-defence etc. But Israel does not exist, and therefore can have no right to self-defence.  

Macdara is a queer communist; he has nothing in common with Hamas except an opposition to settler colonialism. But he does not choose sides based on which side he feels might like him more, unlike those gays still high from Tel Aviv Pride, who criticise Hamas for not waving rainbow flags, and ask queer people how we could possibly support homophobes over the gays of Tel Aviv who are so like us. To these spoiled and unserious people, the fact that queer Palestinians are being murdered every day is of no consequence.

Macdara in fact supports the idea of a Jewish homeland, and is therefore in a sense a Zionist. The accomplishments of Jewish settlers in Palestine in creating a national identity, reviving a language, bringing renewed confidence to a terrorised people, are immense, and would be worth celebrating if it had not all taken place on stolen land. The present writer was once sceptical of the idea that the Jewish people needed a homeland for their safety, but his naive position was abandoned when it was clear to him that Jewish loved ones were making this argument in good faith: why believe, after two thousand years of persecution, that the hounding of the Jewish people is at an end? We have recent evidence that this is not the case.  But the anticolonial struggle in Palestine does not furnish such evidence.

Perhaps when Palestine is free from the river to the sea, settlers can become Jewish Palestinians? This is a question for the Palestinian people. And if not, if the Jewish homeland must move elsewhere, will we see one or more of Israel’s supporters cede land to the Zionist enterprise they currently so enthusiastically endorse? A matter to be doubted. It is easier to give away other people’s land.

IX

Now Macdara is not an Irish Times reader, let alone writer; he is not a liberal; not seeking respectability. Despite a certain native kindness, he is happy to say that he might not even be a nice person. Macdara is an Extremist; a supporter of the revolutionary idea that all people are Equal. In the context of Palestine, we see how extreme this idea is. The new McCarthyism designates us as antisemites; we occupy a position beyond a boundary set so as to protect the comfort and assets of those inside. This cannot last. 

In Ireland, it was predictable that the Partionist media would be dominated initially by the question of how bad Sinn Féin looks for supporting Palestine. The relief that the elite felt in being on the side of Israel was evident, though it couldn’t last long.

It has been heartwarming to see the apparent support for Palestine from the Irish Government, though always couched in what the Government imagines that Israeli (or American) observers might see as being reasonable in showing due regard for Israeli interests. But the Government fails to realise that being soft on Israel makes no difference: like Unionists in the north-east of our country, it is the existence of the natives that they object to. No compromise is possible in such cases: anything but totally giving in is taken to be an attack; anything, in fact, except dying—oh but then settler Sensibilities would be offended by the dead bodies of the natives! 

Unless the Palestinians can find a way to disappear completely—that is, a way to never have existed in the first place—then Israel will object, declare itself attacked, declare itself compelled to fight.

Instead of trying a gentle approach, one must articulate a position of total Equality, a total commitment to Revolution.  Of course the Irish Government, dedicated to inequality in general, cannot do this.  But showing some more muscularity in dealing with a genocidal regime would be welcomed.  

That—like everything else—is too much to hope.