The log in Israel’s eye

Israel’s genocide is about killing Palestinians, not reducing violence.

Black liberation theologian James Cone presciently wrote in God of the Oppressed that during the “black insurrection” (as he termed it) in Detroit in the summer of 1967,white preachers and theologians failed to the task of understanding Black pain. He wrote, “The most sensitive whites merely said: ‘We deplore the riots but sympathize with the reason for the riots.’ This was tantamount to saying: ‘Of course we raped your women, lynched your men, and ghettoized the minds of your children and you have a right to be upset; but that is no reason for you to burn our buildings. If you people keep acting like that, we will never give you your freedom.’”

Cone was not denying the harm caused by the insurrection—the 43 deaths, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 400 buildings destroyed—but was rather suggesting that white folks commenting on it was disingenuous. In Black Theology of Liberation he wrote, “Black theology does not deny that all persons are sinners. What it denies is white reflections on the sin of blacks. Only blacks can speak about sin in a black perspective and apply it to black and white persons.”

Cone is arguing that it is unfair to sidestep the oppression that causes uprisings while only addressing the violence itself. If we fail to understand that oppression leads to (counter) violence, we will repeat it. This well-worn argument came to my mind this weekend as I was with Mennonite Action, along with other interfaith groups, protesting Christians United For Israel at the National Harbor’s convention center. Our group was large enough that some members of CUFI decided to show up and asserted themselves. I stood by them, in the spirit of protecting the group and hoping to de-escalate, when one asked me if I supported Hamas. I ignored him. He smugly remarked that my silence answered his question. (It did not, in fact, it merely expressed that I didn’t want to talk to him).

Another CUFI member spoke to a person next to me and said, “the war will end when Hamas is finished.” This is a shift from the months-old argument that the fighting would stop when the hostages returned. Upon realizing that ceasefire negotiations were actually resulting in the return of hostages, Bibi switched his policy to focus on ending Hamas and controlling Gaza. (Of course, “ending” a party you are negotiating with for a ceasefire suggests that you don’t want a ceasefire at all.)

In the spirit of James Cone, what the CUFI member was saying was tantamount to, “Of course we starved your children, displaced your families, destroyed your schools and hospitals, but that is no reason for you to resist. If you people keep acting like that, we will never give you your freedom.”

Here, it wasn’t the most sensitive people making the comment though, it was people supporting a genocide. To them, the war and oppression will end when Palestinians start acting like they deserve to be treated with dignity. Their argument burdens Palestinians with their own deaths. It blames them for the oppression Israel is waging on them. It doesn’t hold Israel accountable for its atrocities and falsely claims the only reason it has indiscriminately bombed Gaza is because of Hamas, but 75 years of oppression and apartheid beg to differ.

I certainly understand why the argument is being made. Because it is so apparently and plainly wicked, Israel’s genocide can only be morally justified as a way to end terrorism in Palestine. If you remove that excuse, then either proponents of the argument would need to confront their own hypocrisy or face the fact that what they are interested is indeed what Israel’s far-right government is doing: destroying Palestine.

Zionist anxiety around facing the immorality of Israel’s genocide is further expressed when critics of Israel are labeled as antisemitic, or even more nonsensically, funded by Iran. Rather than face the plainly apparent evil, they make bad-faith critiques of those exposing the genocide and make it harder to confront both actual antisemitism and Middle Eastern theocracies.

It is Israel’s very oppression (and the U.S. funding of it) that causes uprisings, even ones that we all would decry as heinous. Without that oppression, we won’t see violent resistance. The answer to the Palestinian question is found in Palestinians rights and giving their land back. But for Israel and its tyrannical Prime Minister, such a thing is an affront to their very mission, which is complete occupation of Israel. Israel errantly thinks that if it completely controls and polices Palestine, terrorism would end. My response to Israel is that its attempt to control and police Palestinians is why they are facing resistance. And if they want to create more violent uprisings, the best way to do it is more violence, more oppression, more war, and more genocide.

Our call on that free speech zone in front on the lawn of the National Harbor that morning was about ending the violence against Palestinians. It is only when Palestinians are free that a vision for a peaceful Israel-Palestine can begin to form. The decades of trauma and pain woven into the very heritage of Palestinians creates indifference to Israeli suffering and justifies further violence. Perpetuating that oppression only makes matters worse. Pointing the finger first at Hamas and forgetting that Israel created the conditions of Hamas, and that even Benjamin Netanyahu empowered it to further divide the Palestinian people, is a justification for more oppression.

Jesus of Nazareth spoke to the very hypocrisy of an oppressive group pointing out the folly of who it oppressed when named the hypocrisy that surrounded him. In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord said, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

James Cone, pointing out white hypocrisy, follows in that tradition. And Palestinians and Arabs who refuse to listen to arguments justifying genocide do the same.

Oppression creates violent insurgency and insurrection. Saying that the oppression will end when the violence does ensures that the violence reaction doesn’t end and creates more violent resisters and resistance. We all deserve dignity, and the powers that keep us from it must understand that the violence response they decry is directly related to how they oppress people. The only solution for peace is an immediate ceasefire and the freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people.