Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

by Marc Lamont Hill

We cannot truly grapple with our history if we ignore how it has also affected the rest of the world.

On the contrary, the realization of Palestinian rights cannot be fully attained without the realization of Jewish rights, and vice versa.

we must recognize that we cannot enjoy particular freedoms in the United States if our government is helping to deny those same rights to others around the world.

“The overwhelming majority of Palestinians have not demanded Jewish-Israelis removal … only a relinquishment of their desire to rule.”

Yousef Munayyer, “To ask a Palestinian not to be anti-Zionist is to ask a Palestinian not to be.”26

The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people.

the demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s “right to exist” is, in fact, a demand that Palestinians legitimize their own dispossession.

His explanation undermines the foundation of the right to boycott, which must, by definition, be protected against government interference of any kind.

vastly unequal representation of Palestinian violence as terrorism and Israeli violence as self-defense).

How can we in the United States and Europe, as well as in much of Israel, comfortably enjoy our liberal privileges and democratic governments, while Palestinians are deprived of the most basic rights?

By painting Trump as an exceptional figure, political solutions are understood to begin and end with his administration, rather than as a commitment to resolving some of our most entrenched and dangerous progressive contradictions.

the beginnings of what was called the “Great March of Return,” where Israel shot 773 people,

With only 4 percent potable water, electricity access that is limited to four hours per day, 50 percent unemployment, and the looming threat of Israeli bombs, Gaza constitutes one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world.

The biggest single issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948 is not Jerusalem, settlements, borders, or even security. 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.

is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force.

As we—the people of the United States—do nothing, nearly two million innocent people suffer some of the worst living conditions in the world.

We have seen how much influence the United States can wield in creating injustice. Now is the time to see how much power we have to dismantle it.

But that is the same as the P.L.O., who are terrorists to the Israelis and freedom fighters to the Arabs.”

All of this notwithstanding, military personnel and locations are legitimate targets, although such actions by the Palestinians are often treated no differently in the media and by Israel.

The alarmist language, which portrayed the GMR as a very large and violent mob bearing down on Israel, elides the fact that the gathering of protesters occurred inside Gaza, which naturally invites the question of why Israel felt it was entitled to police that action in the first place, particularly as it claims to have no powers or responsibilities as an occupier in Gaza.