12 | NOVEMBER 12 • 2020 

is ruled by the U.S.-designated 
terrorist organization Hamas. 
If Palestinians are denied their 
“freedom and dignity” and 
“civil, political, and economic 
rights,
” as the piece claims, 
wouldn’
t the bulk of the blame 
fall on their own rulers? 
In any case, there are multiple 
territorial arrangements around 
the world in which separate 
political entities share a piece 
of land; for example, Lesotho 
is an entirely independent state 
surrounded by South Africa, 
as is San Marino within Italy. 
While Palestinians exercise 
limited self-rule, as opposed to 
full statehood, it’
s not “apart-
heid”-esque to separate peoples 
based on national citizenship. 

Israel’
s security apparatus 
within the West Bank and 
blockade of the Gaza Strip are 
not in place to impose racial 
hegemony, but to protect Israeli 
citizens against stabbings, rock-
ets, suicide bombings, and other 
terrorist assaults. To ignore this 
context is dishonest. 
The authors then write that 
IfNotNow “affirms the right of 
Jewish Israelis to live in the land 
with freedom and dignity, just 
as [they] affirm the same right 
for Palestinians.
” They also laud 
poll results that indicate increas-
ing support for evacuating 

“Jewish-only settlements in the 
West Bank” among American 
Jews, ostensibly to achieve a 
two-state solution. 
But if all should be free to live 
there with “freedom and dig-
nity,
” why do Jewish-majority 
areas in the West Bank need to 
be evacuated? Why couldn’
t — 
theoretically — Jews live as a 
minority in a future Palestinian 
state just as Arabs live as a 
minority in the Jewish state? 
Perhaps it would be possible if 
Palestinian Authority President 
Mahmoud Abbas didn’
t insist 
that, “In a final resolution, we 
would not see the presence of a 
single Israeli — civilian or sol-
dier — on our lands.
” 
 The authors also state that 
past Jewish criticism of the 
Movement for Black Lives 
platform was based on its 
supposed “[alignment] with 
the Palestinian freedom move-
ment.
” In reality, the Jewish 
community objected to the 
platform’
s false assertion that 
Israel is committing “genocide” 
against the Palestinians, and 
the equally absurd canard that 
Israel practices “apartheid.
” 

DIFFERENT ISSUES 
America is not the Levant; the 
national conflict between the 
Israelis and the Palestinians is 
an entirely different geopoliti-
cal issue than racial tension in 
America. As CAMERA UK’
s 
Adam Levick puts it, the con-
flict “isn’
t fueled by race, but 
by the failure of two people to 
reach a political agreement on 
how to share the land.
” 
In large part, these two 
peoples have failed to reach a 
political agreement because of 
Palestinian leaders’
 unwilling-
ness to accept a Jewish state in 
any part of the land between the 
river and the sea and repeated 
rejections of peace agreements. 

VIEWS

ethical imperatives to “Love 
your neighbor as yourself” and 
“Love the stranger as yourself” 
to Palestinians. 

HAFRADA 
Jews have a direct interest in 
defeating the forces which 
uphold the discriminatory sys-
tem of separation and oppres-
sion in Israel/Palestine because 
these same forces ultimately 
threaten us as well. 
Police brutality in the United 
States is built upon white 
supremacy, a racist ideology 
that ultimately imperils Black 
people as well as Jews, Latinos, 
Native Americans, Arabs and 
everyone else deemed as “non-
white.
” 
Although many American 
Jews can pass as white today, 
our enemies never saw us as 
such. In October 2018, a white 
supremacist murdered 11 Jews 
in Pittsburgh, motivated by the 
belief that Jews were bringing 
“invaders” (i.e., refugees) into 
the United States to “replace” 
whites. 
The anti-Jewish racism 
behind this conspiracy theory 
doesn’
t exist in a vacuum; its 
endurance draws strength from 
the continued existence of all 
racisms. To defeat one, we must 
defeat them all. 
Police brutality in the United 
States cannot be explained by 
white supremacy alone. It is 
also a function of militarism: 
the political system that priv-
ileges the use of armed force 
in responding to society’
s ills. 
Militarism is how the murderer 
in Pittsburgh was able to obtain 
such lethal weapons, and why 
police consume huge portions 
of our municipal budgets to 
the exclusion of social services 
(including in Huntington 
Woods). Militarism also struc-
tures our country’
s violent and 

destructive policy in the Middle 
East, from the U.S. invasion and 
occupation of Iraq to the U.S.-
backed Israeli occupation. 
The term “occupation” refers 
to the system of violence and 
separation by which Israel 
denies Palestinians freedom 
and dignity through depriving 
them of civil, political and eco-
nomic rights. It encompasses a 
range of Israeli state practices, 
like police brutality, family 
separation, home demolitions, 
illegal water shutoffs and mass 
incarceration. While we whol-
ly condemn the occupation, 
IfNotNow affirms the right of 
Jewish Israelis to live in the land 
with freedom and dignity, just 
as we affirm the same right for 

Palestinians. 
Many anti-occupation Israelis 
no longer refer to the situation 
as an occupation — which, as 
envisaged by international law, 
is supposed to be temporary 
— but rather as “hafrada,
” a 
Hebrew word that translates 
literally to “separation.
” It is no 
accident that the meaning of 
this Hebrew word resembles the 
Afrikaans word “apartheid.
” 
No matter the name, this 
oppressive system needs racism 
and militarism to function. 
Without the principle that one 
nation deserves full civil and 

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COMPARISON from page 10

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AHMAD GHARBALI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES AND JTA

Giant posters on buildings in Jerusalem feature photos of Israeli Prime Minister 

Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, beneath slogans supporting 

West Bank annexation and opposing a Palestinian state. 

