Across the United States, “heads are rolling” at the top of some Ivy League universities amid a campus-wide crackdown on students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, shining a spotlight on the question of freedom of expression worldwide, said UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan.
Genuine question. The sign in the thumbnail says, “We want Palestine to be liberated.” What does that mean?
Is it advocating for the dissolution of the state of Israel? Like, “liberated” implies the removal of an occupier, no?
It can’t just mean “stop the murders,” right? Like, if that’s the case it was say to liberate the “Palestinians,” not “Palestine” right?
I just ask because I feel like the messaging on this is a bit all over the place at times, and calls for the abolishment of the state of Israel seem a bit extreme to me, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s the actual stance people are taking.
Then you are basically implying the state of Israel can’t exist without genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
Most of these protesters want a one state solution that doesn’t discriminate between people based on religion or ethnicity.
Or they want a two state solution where a Palestinian army can protect Palestinians against Israel stealing their land, denying them health care and imprisoning their families.
I don’t think that’s what I’m implying though. I’m all for signs that say “end the genocide” or “equality for Palestinians.”
I think my question is, does the sign in the thumbnail imply that the state of Israel can’t exist without genocide?
I think it absolutely can, and that’s why I was questioning the message on the sign, as it seems to oppose what you claim most of the protestors want.
If that’s what you believe, then you don’t actually disagree with the sign.
You only disagree with the narrative that the sign must be anti-Semitic.
Welcome to our world.
OK, 2 paragraphs of background: Currently (and for the past decade) people in Gaza have had no control over their land or future - they are entirely at the mercy of the Israelis. You might see references to this as the “right to self determination.” Palestinians in Gaza cannot leave, cannot trade with other countries, etc. Israel controls all land crossings and has a naval blocade on the sea, inspects all goods coming into Gaza, including limiting what goods Gazan people are allowed to possess. Attempts to give Gazans goods have been met with extreme hostility - see, for example, the freedom flotilla in 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
If a country controls every aspect of your territory, that is by almost by definition an occupation. This article talks in depth about the definition of an occupation: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-international-law/ (note atlantic council is a right-leaning source, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/atlantic-council/). Here’s a second source from the UN, back in 2022 before the current events. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129942
So to answer your second question, “liberated” does imply the removal of an occupier. Under almost every definition, Israel is occupying Gaza and the West Bank.
To answer your first question, is it advocating for the dissolution of Israel? In general, no (yes, some people want that, don’t “not all x” me). But if the real question is where do we go from here, how do we “stop the murders”?
If Israel relinquished control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that would be what people generally call the Two-State solution. This is NOT the dissolution of the state of Israel at all, and in fact enshrines the state of Israel, but at a scale that give it by definition less than the entirety of Israel+Gaza+West Bank. While this has been the “liberal” position in the US, the US keeps voting against a real Palestinian state (https://apnews.com/article/un-vote-palestinian-membership-us-veto-8d8ad60d8576b5ab9e70d2f8bf7e2881). In other words, what we say we want does not match up with our actions. And Netanyahu has reiterated that this will never happen under his watch. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-18-2024-73d552c6e73e0dc3783a0a11b2b5f67d
So if a 2-state solution is off the table by both the US and Israel, where does that leave us? Without a two-state (or one-state solution, with enshrined rights for Palestinians), the murders of Palenstinians will continue unabated. For example, in the West Bank (the other occupied territory), more than 200 Palestinains were murdered in 2023. https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/palestinians-west-bank-2023-was-deadliest-year-record https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-16-23/h_b60eefa90fd1779f9b2b8cbf8d823c41
Apart from this, Israel would basically have to either push all the non-Jewish populations out of Israel (known as ethnic cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing) or kill them all.
Remove the occupier (Israel) from Palestine, not completely from the map (although this would solve a few issues, it would also create many others. The two-state solution is probably the best one, but it doesn’t work if one of the two states has an authoritarian far-right government that wants to commit a genocide)
This is the thing, the far-right Israeli government (run by Nethanyahu) vs far-right Hamas are fighting each other. Innocent people die and that brings younger people who are siding for Palestine without understanding how complex the whole conflict is. There are no good sides here, both are extremists.