As an ignorant US born person, an ongoing war in a foreign land felt like the unfortunate repercussion of my citizenship. While captive in this mindset, foreign regions promoted in corporate media stories as terror threats were represented as “places of endless war”. This is the position that the Middle East holds for many, but today Palestine doesn’t feel so far away, in Southeast Michigan especially, the war is creeping onto our front porch. While driving through Detroit’s neighboring city of Dearborn: the black, white, green and red flags of Palestine are plastered across car hoods, flung around street corners and waved over tall buildings as Pro-Palestinians respond to a call to strike from the heart of Jerusalem, “Israel’s settler-colonial project and military occupation has suffocated us for seventy-three years and counting. They have systematically tried to erase us, but still we rise and resist—for the lives taken from us, for the countless injured, for those whose homes have been destroyed, and for the thousands arbitrarily imprisoned for daring to speak truth.” In this moment Palestine feels more like the neighborhood next door than some distant land of war.
With what distant reporters describe as Israel-Hamas violence happening in response to “divisions over the Jewish state”, we fail to capture the opposing party’s legitimate protest of the divisions. At the time, Israel was the sole party responsible for how the state was split apart. With Palestinian leaders excluded, the executed plan did not serve Palestinian people and as a result they refused to comply. For many Palestinians, the construction of the Jewish state resulted in the destruction of their own. This is an ongoing issue. Today the vast majority Palestine’s societal infrastructure has been stripped down in order to accommodate Israel’s settler-colonial project. Knowing this complicated history, the use of the phrases in the corporate media like Israel-Hamas violence or Israeli-Palestinian conflict distort Palestine’s position as the heavily oppressed party in relation to Israel as it blankets the extreme level of oppression that Israel places upon Palestinian residents in the state. The minimization of the damage caused by Israeli forces onto unarmed, unfunded Palestinian residents is one of the main functions of mass media representations of the chaos in the region.
Palestine’s position as the heavily oppressed party in relation to Israel is obvious in their volatile relationship to one another. With every advancement in Israel’s architecture, there is destruction to Palestine’s. For example, as Israel’s developed their access to utilities like water and electricity, Palestine’s access has been limited to the point of many families having access to electricity for only a few hours of the day, being forced on long trips through multiple Israeli guarded checkpoints for simple supplies. This direct relationship between the two negatively impacts Palestinians so much so that children worry for their lives when they wake up in the morning fearing that they may succumb to a missile fire over their home or school or fall prey to an officer at a checkpoint.
As a young professional seeking to broaden my understanding of relations in the region, I mentored young students living in Palestine in English literature through a nonprofit organization, We Are Not Numbers. The students’ writings range from drafts for college admission essays in hopes of studying overseas to book excerpts from budding novelists and even reflective poetic pieces destined to open the eyes of unforgiving minds. Their unique experiences fuel a writing passion that I relate to as a similarly oppressed class painted under a brush of “wild street thuggery” by US over militarization.
The masses must understand that in the same way that gang violence is inflated in the media, there are no Palestinian terror groups threatening the lives of Palestinian people, especially nowhere near the level of Israeli forces claiming to be “targeting Hamas” whom Pelosi defends, “Hamas’s accelerating violence only risks killing more civilians, including innocent Palestinians”. In contrast, the only group disregarding the lives of innocent Palestinians are the US funded ‘key ally’ Israel forces. These forces have the military weaponry, government backed authority and geographic security that Palestinian people do not have. AOC reinforces the problem created by ignoring instances of unprovoked massive violence caused by Israel in her tweets, “Namely, the expulsions of Palestinians & attacks on Al Aqsa dehumanize Palestinians & imply that Us will look the other way at human rights violations. It’s wrong”. Rather than be a simple implication, the US has consistently looked the other way from human rights violations caused by Israel occupation including Palestinian family homes, schools and work offices destroyed by Israel’s countless missile strike attacks. The strike being hosted by US based Palestinian advocacy organization Adalah Justice Project reports, “In Gaza, over 40,000 Palestinians have lost their homes in the last week because of Israel’s carpet bombings. Just this morning, Israel announced it would be targeting two elementary schools in Gaza. The death toll is rising so fast, the updates are in constant need of updating.”
Thankfully there are public officials like AOC who are willing to defend Palestinians on a legislative level. Sanders advices in NYT, “Palestinians also have the right to peace and security” and I couldn’t agree anymore eagerly. I’m honored to have the privilege of drawing many of reflections during my study of Middle Eastern Politics in a course taught by Dr. Karam Dana at UW. Knowing that many do not have access to a Palestinian scholar for insight, it can be difficult to wrap our minds around the depth of violence and loss that’s been suffered by the Palestinian people, almost as difficult as it is for us as community members to wrap our minds around how we could possible inspire change for Palestinians. We have to consistently live lives that resist oppression in order to be a free people. I’m constantly inspired by the stories that I encounter from young students living in Palestine, so I encourage readers to some type of organization based in Palestine and led by Palestinian people. Readers can follow We Are Not Numbers on social media, stories from their posts can be referenced when speaking to decision makers and even to loved ones when when discussing the events and brainstorming solutions. The goal is to restore the lives of the Palestinian people living in Gaza because #PalestinianLivesMatter.
