Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

by Marc Lamont Hill

Trump was heavily influenced by the views of his closest advisers, all of whom were closely aligned with the far right in Israel and were part of the related segment of the American Jewish community.43 He took a fused approach in which he both drew on that influence and characteristically acted on his own impulses. That is the Trump trademark, and it colored how he approached a U.S. policy that was shaped by presidents and Congresses decades before him. Rather than change the policy, he threw all caution to the wind and acted on it.

On August 31, 2018, the Trump administration announced it would be discontinuing all financial support to UNRWA. The United States had been, by far, the biggest donor to UNRWA, contributing about one-third of the agency’s annual budget. The loss of those funds was crippling, even though some other countries did step up to make up for some of the loss in U.S. support.

Donald Trump has been, without question, an anomalous figure in many ways as a U.S. president. He possesses a dangerous combination of ignorance of the issues he was faced with and complete indifference to that ignorance. This combination allowed him to dispense with the cautionary considerations that led other presidents to reject certain actions.

the Jerusalem and UNRWA actions are more emblematic of what Trump has done, which is not to write a whole new act in the play that is the U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but to strip the mask off the United States.

To truly produce justice in the region, progressives must absolutely challenge Donald Trump’s policies. But we must also acknowledge that Trump was merely a dangerous extension, not the source, of deeply rooted and thoroughly bipartisan policies that have harmed the Palestinian people—and positioned Palestine as an exception to which core liberal American values are not applied.

“The economic de-development of Gaza was neither planned nor accidental; rather, it was the outcome of official Israeli policies designed to secure military, political, and economic control over Gaza and the West Bank, and to protect Israel’s national interests.”

Despite launching Hamas and other groups employing violence into the spotlight, the Intifada was largely a nonviolent effort composed of labor strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts.23

The Gaza withdrawal, while a positive step forward in some ways, signified the perpetuation of Israeli control over Palestinians, albeit in a different form. The residents of Gaza, already bereft of resources and with a completely shattered economy, had little hope of building their infrastructure. The unilateral nature of the withdrawal meant the Palestinian Authority was unable to prepare and coordinate its role in post-withdrawal Gaza and made it much more difficult for it to assume control and stabilize the situation there.

The barrier surrounding Gaza, which would soon be mimicked by one inside the West Bank, placed Gazans at the mercy of those who were keeping them within the barrier. Egypt and Israel, along with the West Bank, were the primary markets for Gazan exports and, despite the withdrawal of its settlements and soldiers, Israel maintained control over Gaza’s airspace and coastline. Gaza also remained dependent on Israel for water and electricity.53 These facts formed the basis for the widely held position that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation to this day.54

Hamas’s militancy was, at best, a minuscule factor. Polls, before and after the election, showed that majorities of Palestinians continued to believe that diplomacy was preferable to armed struggle. The far greater factor was growing disdain for Fatah, amid continued issues with human rights violations, corruption, and cronyism.

Israeli policy (unlike Hamas or Hezbollah) is not intended to maximize civilian casualties. Yet it does intentionally target civilians: it is intended to produce maximal civilian distress, while avoiding mass civilian casualties.”

One need not defend Hamas to recognize that the people of Gaza are living in unacceptable squalor. Yet as we have demonstrated, the United States has not merely been indifferent to the crisis in Gaza, but played an active, significant, and thoroughly bipartisan role in degrading the conditions.

Instead of trying to find a way to spare the people of Gaza, we have used them in our efforts to oust Hamas. By scape-goating Hamas, who is certainly more than worthy of intense criticism, we ignore the long history of U.S. involvement in the region by both Democratic and Republican administrations. In so doing, we lose our sense of collective responsibility for the current crisis.

The partisan divide on Israel is much stronger than it has been historically, but within the Democratic Party there is a clear, strong, and growing movement opposing the United States’ one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies and actions.

it is a sign that the current political moment is ripe for moving beyond the limits of orthodox political discourse, which has long framed any call for support of Palestinian rights as an exception to progressive values.

To move beyond the current limits, progressives must embrace a more principled politics, one that begins by recognizing the fundamental humanity of Palestinians. From there, they can appeal to progressive values to assert that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights to freedom, justice, equality, safety, and self-determination as everyone else around the world.

it is not the reactionary pro-Israel religious zealots in the Jewish and Christian communities, the conservative, Islamophobic ideologues, or aging cold warriors and War on Terror crusaders who make the Israel-Palestine crisis unique. After all, these groups are acting according to their views and beliefs. Instead, it is the self-titled progressives who contradict their beliefs by justifying or ignoring behavior by Israel that they oppose or at least treat gravely when it is at the hands of other state actors.

To move beyond the current limits, we must be willing to hold the Israeli government—not just right-wing extremists, religious zealots, or neighboring regimes—accountable for its actions in the region, and especially for its denial of basic rights to Palestinians.

we must be willing to critically interrogate our entire approach to the current crisis. We must be willing to embrace, or at least consider, any solution that will yield freedom, justice, safety, and self-determination for everyone.

American progressives and those we elect must be willing to engage in sincere and serious conversations about the current policy context. They must also be willing to place appropriate pressure on the Israeli government—something we do without hesitation to the Palestinians—to act in accordance with international law and basic human rights norms.

“The natural friends of Orthodox Jews are other minority communities next to whom we live. A large part of the black, Latino and Muslim communities, our neighbors, look at us religious Jews as their natural allies against a world of enmity and hate.”13