My Thoughts on the Gaza War Protests
Like many of us here on Medium, I have been watching the war in Gaza and had many thoughts about it. One thing I’ve noticed, for example, is that many of those shouting their support for Palestine are the same ones advocating for the LGBT community. Others have observed this contradiction well before this latest conflict in Gaza began. It was seen in American cities across the country including Boston, Philadelphia and Denver, where pro-Palestine protesters caused a disruption at Pride Month festivities because of connections to Israel and to organizations and companies that support it.
I doubt many of those protesters are aware of the conditions that LGBT people, as well as women, face in Palestine. If they are, they likely choose to overlook it because Israel is supposedly an “apartheid state,” despite the fact that Arab Israelis have the same legal rights as non-Arab Israelis and that both groups strongly stand together against Hamas’ aggression. Muslims and Arabs — even Palestinian Arabs — have served in Israel’s legislative body since the country was first established.
Of all the Middle Eastern countries, Israel is legally and culturally the friendliest nation to LGBT people. It is the freest and most liberal state in the region.
This is not to say that I have had no reservations about the invasion of Gaza and its backers. I have found the rhetoric from some of Israel’s officials towards Gaza to be concerning. It also hasn’t escaped my notice that, despite the varying figures given, thousands of Palestinians have been killed with at least half being reported as civilian deaths.
What we have to remember, however, is that Gaza is an extremely small area, with around 2.3 million people living in a space of only 139 square miles. This makes for a population density of 14,000 people per square mile — one of the highest in the world — where the ruling faction Hamas has been known specifically to use human shields in its military operations. One must expect, therefore, that a large number of Palestinian civilians were unfortunately going to get caught in the crossfire even while — as explained by John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point — the Israeli military has extensively tried to avoid it. All of this calls into question the accusation of genocide that many protesters have hurled at the Israeli government.
It was only after Hamas launched its invasion last year in October that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages that Israel, in turn, launched its own full-scale invasion of Gaza, the first ground invasion in almost a decade. The enemies of Israel within Palestine’s borders have launched indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel every year since 2001.
This is a nation of Jews, a group that has been persecuted as a minority in numerous other nations throughout their history with the most monstrous transgression against them occurring less than a century ago in the Nazi Holocaust. It is a state that has faced continuous hostility — both violent and rhetorical — from its neighbors since its very founding in 1948. However much blood may have been shed in this most recent outbreak between Israel and Palestine, we should all take a moment to appreciate the position that the Israelis have been in and are in right now.
It is certainly true that the oppressed can become the oppressor, but it is also true that the less powerful side is not always the morally superior one. As Americans, most of us were conscious of that after Al-Qaeda murdered thousands of our fellow citizens on 9/11. It didn’t matter whether we were Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal; we understood that Al-Qaeda was an extremist terrorist organization that needed to be taken out.
It is for these reasons that I firmly object to the ill sentiment that has been widely directed at Israel, and more so to the violent tactics and hateful rhetoric that it has inspired among many pro-Palestine protesters. I believe that the uninformed, contradictory stance of this ill sentiment needs to be countered and that Israel, by and large, is doing what it must to protect its people. It goes without saying that I acknowledge the hardship that this war has imposed upon the people of both Israel and Palestine, and I hope for the sake of both nations that it will soon end.