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I don't blame Benjamin Netanyahu. I don’t blame the Israeli Prime Minister for what is occurring to my folks. I don't blame them as we speak, as Israeli bombs destroy each nook of Gaza, and youngsters die underneath the particles. I didn't blame them even in 2013, once I needed to watch the bloodbath of my folks in Gaza on the night information.
When my mom tried to work within the West Financial institution, snipers on rooftops opened hearth on her, in order that they didn't blame her. My grandfather, God relaxation his soul, they didn’t blame him as a result of he died with out returning to the land that was stolen from him by settlers within the Nineteen Eighties.
For me, for my household, for my folks, what we’re seeing in Palestine as we speak is just not “Netanyahu’s battle.” This isn’t his career. He’s nothing however one other cog within the relentless battle machine referred to as Israel.
But when you ask Senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, the supposed champions of Palestinian rights and progressive humanism in the USA, about all the things that has occurred to us over the past 75 years, and all the things that’s taking place to us as we speak. one thing occurs. One man was accused, and one man alone: Netanyahu.
Sanders calls the continuing Israeli assault on Gaza “Netanyahu's battle”, and calls for that the US “not give Netanyahu one other likelihood”. In the meantime, Warren condemned “Netanyahu's failed management” whereas calling for a ceasefire.
To those progressive senators, the reason for all of the ache and struggling in Palestine is obvious: a far-right, hardline prime minister bent on persevering with a battle that retains him in energy.
Positive, Netanyahu is evil. Actually, he dedicated numerous crimes in opposition to Palestinians and humanity throughout his lengthy profession. Actually, he’s selling genocide in Gaza even as we speak for the sake of his political survival. And he have to be held accountable for all of the issues he stated and did that precipitated hurt and ache to my folks. However Netanyahu alone can’t and shouldn’t be blamed for the racism, extremism and genocidal intent on show as we speak in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory.
Brazenly celebrating Israel's gross human rights abuses, disregard for worldwide legislation, and battle crimes on Netanyahu alone is nothing greater than a coping mechanism for liberals like Sanders and Warren.
By blaming Netanyahu for the struggling and oppression of the Palestinian folks, previous and current, they maintain alive the lie that Israel was constructed on progressive beliefs moderately than ethnic cleaning.
By accusing Netanyahu, they’re whitewashing their seemingly unconditional help for a state that has dedicated battle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity.
By blaming Netanyahu, and presenting Israel as a progressive, well-intentioned state that can respect worldwide humanitarian legislation, however which is at present taken over by a foul chief, they’re serving to themselves – and the world at giant. However clearing America of complicity in Israel's many battle crimes.
In fact, Sanders, Warren, and everybody pushing this line know full effectively that the Israeli-Palestinian “battle” is not going to magically disappear and that the Palestinians is not going to see rapid liberation and justice if Netanyahu is gone.
In spite of everything, that they had seen the same situation within the US only a few years earlier. Folks had stated that if Trump have been faraway from the White Home, the issues he promoted and instigated would disappear. American democracy will survive and all the things might be high-quality.
However did this occur? It's been nearly 4 years for the reason that eventful finish of Trump's presidency, however we are able to nonetheless see rampant racism, inequality, gun violence, and poverty throughout the nation.
These issues haven’t been magically mounted since Trump grew to become president, as a result of they weren’t created by Trump. These have been by no means “Trump” issues, however American issues. Moreover, there’s a very actual risk that Trump will return to the White Home subsequent 12 months as a result of tens of millions of Individuals help him and his agenda.
The identical is true for Netanyahu and Israel.
The suggestion that Netanyahu betrayed Israel's progressive, democratic foundations and precipitated the “humanitarian disaster” we’re seeing in Gaza as we speak ignores the systemic oppression that’s inherent in Israel as a settler colony. .
Sanders and others could wish to consider the Zionist fantasy that Israel is an basically progressive nation with socialist foundations, constructed by a folks with no land on a “land of no folks.” However they can not escape the truth that Palestine has by no means been a “land with out a folks.” The truth is, the institution of Israel required the expulsion of tens of millions of Palestinians who’re indigenous to the land, and for Israel's existence as a “Jewish nation”, as said in its nation state legislation, continued oppression, Disenfranchisement and abuse is required. Of Palestinians.
Immediately, tens of millions of Palestinians proceed to stay and die underneath Israeli occupation, and so they – together with Palestinian residents of Israel – stay underneath what’s broadly described as an apartheid system.
This unstable and unjust dynamic is hardly the work of Netanyahu and his authorities.
From the very starting, the State of Israel linked its long-term existence to the ethnic cleaning of Palestine, the whole erasure of Palestinian id, and the oppression of the Palestinians remaining on their lands. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir wrote in a Washington Put up op-ed in 1969, many years earlier than the start of Netanyahu's reign, that “there is no such thing as a such factor as a Palestinian”.
Actually, the Israeli left promotes its agricultural-based communal dwelling circumstances in “kibbutzim” as a socialist dream, and lots of Israelis are happy with their nation’s “democracy.” However all that is solely true when you ignore the humanity of Palestinians, who’ve been ethnically cleansed of their land to make means for socialist kibbutzim, and who stay underneath full Israeli management in illegally occupied territory. Regardless of dwelling there, they can not take part in Israel's democracy.
Earlier than the beginning of the bloodbath in Gaza, Israelis had been protesting en masse for months in opposition to what they thought of Netanyahu's assault on the nation's authorized system and democracy. But by no means have they protested in such numbers and with such power in opposition to the occupation, killing and brutalization of Palestinians by their very own state and navy.
In November, a full month after the bloodbath, just one.8 % of Israelis stated they believed Israeli forces have been utilizing an excessive amount of firepower in Gaza, and now, 5 months after the bloodbath, about 40 % Share of Israelis say they wish to see the revival of Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Evidently the pictures of hundreds of useless and maimed Palestinians don’t imply a lot to Israelis. They aren’t impressed by movies of fathers carrying their youngsters's stays in plastic luggage, or moms crying over the bloodied our bodies of their murdered youngsters. They don't care concerning the ravenous youngsters trapped underneath particles, or the youngsters being poisoned by chook meals amid a man-made famine. They aren’t solely detached to the struggling inflicted on innocents by their very own forces – hundreds of them truly protest on the border gates to make sure that no support reaches Palestinians on the point of hunger.
Many of those are the identical Israelis who took to the streets lower than a 12 months in the past to protest in opposition to Netanyahu's so-called assault on their democracy.
So, no – what we’re seeing in Palestine as we speak is just not “Netanyahu’s battle” as Sanders and Warren always declare. This battle, this genocide, didn’t start with Netanyahu's coming to energy and it’ll not finish together with his inevitable fall from grace.
Settlers started stealing Palestinians' land, properties, and lives lengthy earlier than Netanyahu grew to become related in Israeli politics. Palestinians have been being held in open prisons lengthy earlier than he grew to become Prime Minister. The Israeli navy didn’t start abusing, harassing, maiming and killing Palestinians when Netanyahu grew to become their commander.
The issue is just not Netanyahu or some other Israeli politician or normal.
The issue is Israel's occupation. The issue is the settler colony whose safety and long-term viability relies on the system of apartheid and the unending occupation, oppression and mass homicide of the indigenous inhabitants.
This isn’t Netanyahu's battle, that is Israel's genocide.
The views expressed on this article are these of the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.