Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

by Marc Lamont Hill

This is not to suggest that Trump’s defeat was a small matter. To the contrary, Biden’s presidency offered, to borrow a phrase from James Baldwin, “a means of buying time.” By removing the immediate threat of fascism, white nationalism, and extraordinary incompetence, the American people cleared a little bit of space to better fight the perennial threats of white supremacy, capitalism, and empire.

It is up to us, as Americans, to ensure that our involvement is based on universal humanistic values that are applied in a consistent manner. Such an approach has not historically been part of U.S. policy. As we enter the Biden era, we must change direction. We must no longer render Palestine exceptional.

The highly controversial “Nation-State Bill” that Israel passed into law in July 2018 epitomized this attack. The law states plainly that only Jews can exercise national self-determination in Israel, downgrades Arabic from an official language to one of “special status,” and explicitly states that Jewish settlement of the “Land of Israel” (a phrase that includes the West Bank) is to be encouraged.

Jabotinsky’s revelatory 1923 essay, “The Iron Wall,” offers the most lucid outline of his thinking. In the text, he argues that an agreement with the indigenous Palestinian population would only happen if they were confronted with a metaphorical “iron wall,” or the reality of a Jewish majority, polity, and immovable presence in the region.

the Nation-State Law codified with sweeping principles what they saw as Israel’s long-standing self-definition: (A.) The Land of Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established. (B.) The State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, in which it exercises its natural, cultural, religious and historic right to self-determination. (C.) The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.56

It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies…. [And] anyone who doesn’t answer the question about Israel’s right to exist with an unequivocal “yes” risks being portrayed as an eliminationist radical worthy of labels like “anti-Semite” and otherwise marginalized. In other words, it’s a set-up.

Raising the issues of the Palestinian refugees and Arab citizens of Israel was a deliberate indication that the call was not going to focus only on grievances rooted in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, but would speak to the full Palestinian experience since 1948. This approach represented a sharp break from the framework of diplomacy since the 1970s, creating considerable apprehension for Israeli Jews toward the burgeoning BDS movement.

For those who have never lived in a system of violence like the Israeli occupation, it is hard to understand how simply not going anywhere constitutes resistance, but when the objective of your oppressor is to get you to leave your land, staying put is part of the daily struggle.

The BDS declaration challenged what “everybody knows.” The very first BDS condition—that Israel end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and take down the barrier in the West Bank—immediately shifted the context from one that sought to accommodate Israeli political needs and security demands to one that placed Palestinian independence at the heart of the matter.

But where a universalist view would suggest that such a shift in power will lead, in short order, to a more peaceful and productive future for all, the zero-sum view presumes that the newly empowered group would subjugate the relatively disempowered one. Peaceful coexistence, while not entirely ruled out, is seen as too risky a gamble.

However, boycotts aimed at achieving something other than an economic advantage, particularly when the motivation is political or social in nature, may have more of an expressive element which, according to Supreme Court precedent, could qualify for First Amendment protection.

BDS shifted the conversation from a question of states, of territory, and of nationalism, to a question of equal rights.

Since 1972, the U.S. has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from forty-four resolutions criticizing its behavior or calling on it to comply with international law and UN resolutions.3 That is by far the highest total of vetoes of any country over that time span, and it doesn’t account for resolutions that countries abandoned or withdrew because of the threat of a U.S. veto. That would be a far greater number.

Clinton’s words on the campaign trail, however, left a lasting imprint on U.S. policy, establishing not only that Jerusalem was fair game for political theater, but also that Republicans like Reagan did not have a monopoly on one-sided pro-Israel policy. Clinton also shifted policy by separating Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. As historian Charles D. Smith explains, “Whereas former U.S. administrations had characterized ‘East Jerusalem’ as part of the occupied territories, meaning that it was considered West Bank land subject to negotiation, Clinton started calling it ‘disputed territory’ even before the 1993 (Oslo) accord, the status of which would be resolved in final talks. Administration spokespersons argued that extension of Israeli settlements around Jerusalem, which now included significant portions of the West Bank, did not violate American criteria for loans…. Jerusalem’s status had been deferred to permanent status talks.”

The act included a presidential waiver, allowing the president to delay the move for six months if he could report to Congress that vital American interests were at stake in doing so. The waiver was renewable, and every president renewed it until 2018.23

Netanyahu’s last point—that UNRWA should be folded into the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)—is notable. UNHCR has a specific mandate to integrate refugees into host countries where possible, something UNRWA is not mandated to do because substantial portions of both the Palestinian refugees and the neighboring countries passionately oppose it.

As with Jerusalem, Trump’s move to defund UNRWA was aimed at taking the issue of Palestinian refugees off the diplomatic table,

On the other side, Palestinians reasonably argue that if the right of return cannot be passed down the generations, then a statute of limitations on driving all or most of a population from their homeland is de facto in place.

The administration of Barack Obama moved quickly to help Israel denounce the Goldstone Report and defend itself from its conclusions. A memo that was leaked to the public showed that the United States worked closely with Israel to counter the report, stating that “the objective was not to appease the international community, but to dilute the poisonous effects of the Goldstone Report.

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.”

If there must be a price to pay, then let it be in the direction of what is right, in the direction of returning to Palestine, where we can get new land and deepen the enemy’s existential impasse.

It is the Palestinian right of return. It is the one issue Israel would not discuss in talks and will not even consider compromising on. It is also the very basis of the Palestinian national movement since 1948. For seven decades, the Palestinian right of return has been the irresistible force meeting the immovable object of Israeli nationalism.

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.