Lives: Reporting on Hong Kong vs the West Bank

This is a reproduction of an essay from the Christian Peacemaker Teams website. It is on point, a
point being graphically made for many years now by Alison Weir at If Americans Knew and also by B'Tselem on the scene.

Lessons of Hong Kong

“How was I supposed to think about a world where the life of a Palestinian is utterly disposable?”

— Pamela J. Olson, Fast Times in Palestine

When millions of people are in an open struggle for freedom, the world takes notice. The Green Movement in Iran, the Arab Spring, the Maidan in Ukraine, are just some of the recent challenges to authoritarianism that have drawn global admiration—and headlines. Now it is Hong Kong’s turn.

On 1 October, during one of Hong Kong’s massive demonstrations, a protester was hit in the chest by a live round of ammunition, and 4 October, another live round hit a demonstrator’s leg. The world’s press noted both of these developments. Fortunately, both victims lived. The story turned tragic on 8 November with the death of student Chow Tsz-Lok, who sustained fatal brain injuries in a fall near a police action. The Washington Post headline: “Student’s death plunges Hong Kong into night of grief and fury.” Since then, two more protesters have died from police violence.

In the U.S. Congress, the Hong Kong demonstrations sparked a bipartisan push for legislation to end the sale of crowd-control munitions to Hong Kong. The legislation was introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley, who said that the U.S. “should never be complicit in police violence against pro-democracy protests.”

“You can’t compare griefs,” goes the old saying. It takes absolutely nothing away from the struggle of the Hong Kong protesters to wonder aloud why a much bloodier struggle for similar goals in Palestine fails to attract the same level of sympathetic attention. In 2018, Israeli forces killed 289 Palestinians, most of whom were unarmed and not participating in hostilities against Israeli forces. In the first nine months of 2019, 89 more Palestinians were killed. 

The glaring contrast with Hong Kong is this: The Israeli forces routinely violate the rules of discrimination and proportionality that their own regulations require. Too often they use live fire when their own lives are not in danger, and too often they fire indiscriminately. Certainly the Hong Kong demonstrators face strong police forces and, ultimately, the overwhelming might of the Chinese military. It takes admirable courage to persist despite the potential for a very repressive response. Nevertheless, even after we take into account the recent tragic deaths in Hong Kong, the contrast between the casualty level there and the casualty level in Palestine is dramatic. And as long as Israel faces no consequences for the use of live ammunition and dangerous “less lethal” munitions against unarmed Palestinians, why wouldn’t they continue to treat Palestinians as “utterly disposable”?

A key factor in Israeli impunity – also in contrast with Hong Kong – is world indifference. Comparing the press coverage of both places, that indifference is not surprising. The USA’s politicians, media executives, even sports teams have felt the need to respond to events in Hong Kong, but American governmental and corporate benevolence flows to Israel almost without comment in mainstream media.

About a year ago, 416labs.com published a detailed content analysis of headlines in five leading newspapers, from 1967 to 2017, relating to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Israeli sources dominate coverage both in sheer quantity and in terms of positive rather than negative sentiment. Israel-centric headlines exceeded Palestine-centric headlines by a four-to-one margin.

Certain sectors of the American electorate accept a pro-Israel bias almost without question. For example, vice president Mike Pence gave a commencement address to this year’s Liberty University graduates. (Liberty University is the USA’s largest Christian institution of higher education.) Early in his speech, Pence reviews the achievements claimed by the Trump administration. For example:

We’ve been rebuilding our military, standing with our allies, and standing up to our enemies. And under this administration, if the world knows nothing else, the world knows this: America stands with Israel. (Applause.)

For the constituency Pence represents, Israel as a country exists in a category all its own, not subjected to the critical eye of Trump’s isolationist America-first presidency. Palestine is not simply a point of American neglect and ignorance. It’s worse than that: Palestine is to be regarded only through an Israeli lens. Palestinians, their rights, their reality, and their identity as a people, are to be systematically neutralized.

Palestinians themselves steadfastly refuse to accept Israel’s plans for them. There are small but encouraging signs that their persistence is affecting the current imbalance of media attention. First, the younger generation of Jewish Americans is far more critical of Israeli occupation policies than their elders. Second, the taboo among American politicians against criticizing Israel has been weakened by the willingness of three contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination – Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg – to advocate placing conditions on USA military aid to Israel. Their mini-rebellion, mild as it is, has been widely covered in the mainstream press, which just might be the first tiny step toward a more balanced coverage of the occupation.

In the meantime, let’s ask Jeff Merkley, sponsor of the crowd-control munitions bill, and his co-sponsors, senators Cornyn, Markey, and Blackburn, whether their concern about police violence against pro-democracy protests extends beyond Hong Kong.

BBC, Hebron Exposed: A Weapon of Life

The Palestinians are powerless to counter the endless, continual humiliation that Israelis, be they civilians, soldiers or police, are dedicated to inflicting on them every day, year after year, while the world stands by and the United States ("liberty and justice for all") backs everything that Israel does.

The only way Palestinians can avoid complete helplessness is to make videos of their oppression. In this BBC production, a video that would never be shown on American mainstream media, you the viewer are introduced to the situation in Hebron where a small group of Israeli settlers live within an otherwise Palestinian city with Israeli soldiers stationed there to be sure the settlers are protected not only from harm, but from any consequences for what they do to the Palestinians. Please watch and imagine how anyone could bear this mostly non-lethal terrorism where arrest and harassment are meted out for any or no reason by people who hold all the power against people who have no rights.

The Dred Scott decision of the U.S. Supreme Court contained the opinion that "the Negro has no rights that the white man need observe." This video shows that concept in practice today where the Palestinian has no rights that the Israeli need observe.

I just read this in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz:

According to reports published by the Israeli organization Yesh Din: Volunteers for Human Rights, based on 1,163 cases in the years 2005-2017, the probability – in violent crimes involving Jewish perpetrators and Palestinian victims – that a complaint submitted by a Palestinian to the Israel Police would lead to an investigation, apprehension of a suspect, a trial and conviction was 1.9 percent. Fully 91 percent of the investigations conducted in the Shai (the West Bank) District during that period concerning harm done to Palestinians or their property were terminated without indictments being handed down; 82 percent of the cases were closed for reasons that show that the police apparently failed to collect evidence or locate suspects.

a slaughter with full US support

Alison Weir (not to be confused with the British author), the American journalist whose eyes were opened two decades ago to the Palestinian plight, has for some time published the figures showing the lopsided cost of the strife in Palestine/Israel where state of the art weapons inflict a great number of casualties on the Palestinians. Her website, If Americans Knew, is well worth a visit for the graphics she presents.

Yesterday, I discovered an equally powerful presentation of the same kind of information, shown just below, by way of Prof. Juan Cole's website, Informed Comment. This graphic shows an over 200:1 ratio of fatalities and a 560:1 ratio of injuries within the 13 months of the Palestinian Great March of Return beginning in March of 2018 (referred to as GMR in the graphic below). This documents the assassination and injury of unarmed demonstrators at the Gaza border of Israel by Israel soldiers with sniper rifles. Seeing this, you can understand how Israelis can easily live with the destruction their country inflicts on the Palestinians.

Watch an outstanding investigative video of a Palestinian medic killed by the Israeli sniping from the New York Times, an uncharacteristically honest look at situation by that paper. Informed Comment has also published this: thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza at risk of amputation from Israeli sniping.

I attend a talk by Amira Hass

Amira Hass, journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, spoke today in the Chicago area. I attended as I admire her courage in standing up for Palestinian rights. There were about 200 people in the meeting room at a public library with all seats taken. She spoke for about an hour and then took questions from the audience.

She told us that the number of Israelis who, like her, see the injustice of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has dwindled from what it was 20 years ago. Though this injustice is practiced daily by the army and the police, it is easy for Israelis to ignore the situation while the settlers deliberately indulge themselves in oppression, threatening and beating Palestinian farmers and shepherds, uprooting Palestinian olive trees and appropriating Palestinian land on their own initiative.

She said that outside pressure is the only method that will force a change. She noted than the newspaper keeps track of page clicks and this information has revealed that when she writes of the wrongs against the Palestinians few Israelis read what she has to say. If on the other hand she writes of things that are wrong with the Palestinian leadership such as corruption, Israeli readership is much higher. The situation of the Palestinians has become so routine that it bores Israelis, a good example of how it isn't hard to get along with somebody else's troubles...even when one is the cause of them.

She explained her avoidance of the term terrorist; that when she mentions some violent act she describes the act instead of putting it down to terrorism as is usually the case. She questions why an act of violence by someone in uniform is excused as the rightful use of authority while the same act by a non-uniformed individual will be called terrorism. She pointed out that every effort the Palestinians have made to find a solution to the problem of their land being taken from them has been condemned, even if entirely peaceful such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

She displayed this map of the occupied territory (West Bank) that clearly shows the impossibility of a two state solution.

It was not an upbeat presentation because all indications are that Israel will continue to do as it pleases while the world watches helplessly as the United States government reinforces Israeli extremism, at least through the end of the Trump presidency.

I was pleased to see a much larger percentage of young people in attendance than I have at similar events in the past. As an American, I am disgusted with the actions of my government regarding Israel, but I am very proud of the many Americans, in particular American Jews who are disgusted by Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and in particular are revolted by Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to present Israel as the representative of all Jews worldwide.

I listen as Israeli activist Jeff Halper speaks at a local church

Last night I attended a talk given by Jeff Halper, a man I met 9 years ago when he was attending a hearing in Chicago on Israeli violations of human rights. He spoke last night primarily about a one state solution for all the people of Palestine/Israel.

Jeff was born and spent his youth in the U.S. before moving to Israel and becoming a citizen there in 1974. He is active in the Israeli Campaign Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD) that rebuilds Palestinian home demolished by Israel. Israel uses demolitions as a way of evicting Palestinians citing Israeli laws that prevent any construction in Palestinian areas. Jeff mentioned in his talk that ICAHD had over the years rebuilt 300 homes, but that Israel had demolished 50,000 since 1967. I took a look at my post about Jeff from 9 years ago and noted the figure for demolitions at the time was 24,000 so Israel has been very busy.

On this trip to the states, Jeff is also promoting his new book, War Against the People, that tells of the large worldwide market for Israeli military and security related hardware. He told us that Israel is the second largest arms supplier to China and he displayed a map of the world indicating all the places where Israeli items from Kfir jets to crypto-analytic software are sold. Israel promotes its products as tested and proven which Jeff told us means used upon the Palestinians.

With all this income from exports, one has to wonder why the United States is providing Israel with $38 billion in military hardware over the current ten year long "memorandum of understanding" signed by President Obama. The answer is, of course, that the great majority of that money must be spent on U.S. military equipment. It is a gift both to Israel and U.S. military contractors.

Jeff spoke passionately for 90 minutes, letting us know what I already knew, that the two-state solution offered in what were claimed to be peace talks and the solution that is automatically voiced by U.S. politicians who know it is a safe position to take, is dead. He showed a map of the West Bank that makes it obvious that there is no place for a Palestinian state. Israel never intended such a state to be and has always refused to call its rule of the West Bank an occupation since in the view of most Israelis the land is Israel's that just happens to have Arabs living on it...for now.

If not two states, then the future must be one state for all the people, not just Jews. In answer to what the state might be called, Jeff joked it might be "Palestein" but the concept is quite serious. The group associated with the promotion of the idea was founded by 100 people, Jews and Arabs, including Jeff, called One Democratic State Campaign (Facebook) and has a ten point political program outlining what ODSC stands for...

1. a single constitutional democracy
2. the right of return for Palestinian refugees
3. individual rights shared by all
4. collective rights (no discrimination against any community)
5. immigration open to all
6. construction of a shared society (institutions open to all)
7. economic justice (ending the current full services for Jews and substandard service for Arabs)
8. commitment to human rights, justice and peace.
9. joining with those in Arab countries who long to see democracy in their states as well
10. joining the international community of progressives supporting an alternative global order that
stands for egalitarianism and the end of intolerance, oppression and wars

I see nothing in this list I would disapprove, but as I mentioned in a question I asked Jeff, the government of Israel, one that has been repeatedly supported by a majority of Israelis, stands four square for sustaining the oppressive apartheid system they conduct at present. The road to implementation of a single state for all will be rough and cannot make progress without the support of the United States, which, though it claims to be for liberty and justice for all, backs the opposite in Israel.