by
Mehdi Hasan
“If
the concept of intervention is driven by universal human rights, why
is it — from the people who identify themselves as liberal
interventionists — why do we never hear a peep, a word, about
intervening to protect the Palestinians?”
That was
the question I put to the French philosopher, author, and champion of
liberal (or humanitarian) interventionism, Bernard-Henri Lévy, on my
Al Jazeera English interview show “Head to Head” in 2013.
The
usually silver-tongued Levy struggled to answer the question. The
situation in Palestine is “not the same” as in Syria and
“you have not all the good on one side and all the bad on the
other side,” said Levy, who once remarked in reference to the
Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, that he had “never seen such a
democratic army, which asks itself so many moral questions.”
I
couldn’t help but be reminded of my exchange with the man known as
“BHL” this past weekend, as I watched horrific images of unarmed
Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border being shot in the back by
the “democratic army” of Israel. How many “moral questions”
did those Israeli snipers ask themselves, I wondered, before they
gunned down Gazan refugees for daring to demand a return to their
homes inside the Green Line?
On
Friday, the IDF shot an astonishing 773 people with live ammunition,
killing 17 of them. Yet a spokesperson for the IDF bragged that
Israeli troops “arrived prepared” and “everything was
accurate. … We know where every bullet landed.” On Sunday,
Israel’s hawkish defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, roundly
rejected calls from the European Union and the United Nations for an
independent inquiry into the violence and insisted that “our
soldiers deserve a commendation.”
To be
clear, then: Israeli troops will continue to murder and maim
Palestinians while the Israeli government guarantees that there will
be no consequences for their actions.
So,
where is the outcry from liberal interventionists across the West?
Where is BHL, as Palestinians are being shot and wounded in the
hundreds in 2018?
Where is
the call from former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose 1999
speech in Chicago defending the concept of a “just war” and a
“doctrine of the international community” became a key text for
liberal interventionists, for a “no-fly” zone over Gaza? Why does
a guest speaker at Ariel Sharon’s funeral have nothing to say about
the increasing number of Palestinian funerals?
Where is
the moral outrage from former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
Samantha Power, the famously pro-intervention, Pulitzer Prize-winning
author of a “A Problem From Hell,” which lamented U.S. inaction
in Rwanda, over the sheer number of unarmed Palestinians shot,
killed, and injured in recent days? How does she have time to retweet
a picture of an elephant and a lion cub, but not to make a statement
about the violence in Gaza?
Where is
the demand from Canadian academic-turned-politician Michael
Ignatieff, who was once one of the loudest voices in favor of the
so-called responsibility to protect doctrine, for peacekeeping troops
to be deployed to the Occupied Territories?
Where
are the righteously angry op-eds from Nicholas Kristof of the New
York Times, or Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, or David
Aaronovitch of The Times of London, demanding concrete action against
the human rights abusers of the IDF?
And
where is the appeal from former U.S. Secretary of State and
arch-interventionist Madeleine Albright for economic and financial
sanctions against the state of Israel? For an arms embargo? For
travel bans on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister
Lieberman, and IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot?
Their
silence is deafening — and telling. Palestinians, it seems, have
been so dehumanized that they don’t deserve a humanitarian
intervention; their blood is cheap, their plight is unimportant, and,
perhaps above all else, their killers are our friends.
Should
we really be surprised, though? After all, this isn’t the first
time that members of the liberal intervention brigade have
shamelessly ignored the tragic deaths of innocent Palestinians.
In March
2001, towards the start of the “Second Intifada,” and with the
Palestinian civilian death toll mounting, the U.N. Security Council
proposed a resolution that would have “set up an appropriate
mechanism to protect Palestinian civilians, including through the
establishment of a United Nations observer force” on the ground
in the Occupied Territories. The United States, however, in the form
of the George W. Bush administration, vetoed that resolution. What
was the response from U.S. liberals? They stayed mum.
In the
summer of 2014, the Israeli air force — for the the third time in
six years — pounded the Gaza Strip, dropping bombs on schools,
hospitals, and apartment buildings, and killing more than 1,500
Palestinian civilians — including 500 children — in the process.
What was the position of then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
(who would later throw her support behind a “no-fly” zone over
Syria)? “Hamas provoked another attack” while “Israel
has a right to defend itself.” And what was the response from
her fellow liberals? Most of them didn’t say a word.
Fast
forward to 2018: This time round, 17 dead and 1,400 wounded. Videos
going viral of Israeli soldiers — armed and funded by U.S.
taxpayers — shooting fleeing Palestinians in their backs. Again,
not a peep on Twitter, or elsewhere, from the leaders of the
Democratic Party in Congress, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer and House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. For liberal Democrats, #resistance is
supposed to be against the Trump administration and the so-called
alt-right, not against the longest military occupation in the world.
This
moral blindness that so many liberals and progressives in the United
States have for the Palestinians has never ceased to amaze — or
disgust — me. As the Israeli writer and economist Abraham Gutman
notes, “This blind spot is so pronounced that it created a whole
new type of progressive, the PEP, ‘Progressive-Except-on-Palestine.’”
The PEP, he continues, “is horrified by the appointment of Jeff
Sessions as Attorney General, but willing to argue that there is
nuance and perhaps support the government of Israel, with [Ayelet]
Shaked as the Minister of Justice, who posted on Facebook an article
calling Palestinian children ‘little snakes.’”
Indeed.
The PEP will loudly condemn the bigotry and nativism of the
Republican Party in the United States, and the ongoing segregation
and racism in the Deep South, while averting their gaze from the
brazen racism of the Israeli government and the ongoing apartheid in
the Occupied Territories.
The PEP
rails against Trump and his hawkish minions while standing to applaud
Netanyahu or smiling in photos with Lieberman — this despite the
fact that the similarities between the Trump and Netanyahu
administrations have been well–documented.
And the
PEP who happens to be a proud supporter of liberal interventionism
will back interventions almost everywhere except the Occupied
Territories. Their heart bleeds for Syrians, Libyans, Afghans,
Iraqis, Rwandans, Kosovars … but not for Palestinians.
This is
not an exercise in whataboutism; it is about drawing attention to
blatant double standards and moral hypocrisy. On Palestine, liberal
interventionists who happen to be “progressive-except-on-Palestine”
borrow from the Trump playbook when they cynically blame “both
sides” for the violence. They claim that Palestinian deaths are the
consequence of “clashes” and “confrontations.” Yet the
reality is that one side is the occupier and the other is the
occupied; one side has rockets and rifles and the other side has
rocks and slingshots; one side is doing the killing and the other
side is doing the dying.
There is
no other conclusion: The ongoing and glaring refusal of liberal
interventionists in the West to say even a word about the need to
protect occupied Palestinians from state-sponsored violence is a
reminder of just how morally bankrupt and cynically hypocritical the
whole “liberal intervention” shtick is.
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